CASTLE FURNISHINGS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 22 March 1939, Page 7

CASTLE FURNISHINGS

ENGLISHMAN’S COMMISSION.

EXPENDITURE OF £750,000

Miss Alice Head, the Englishwoman who has bought antiques to the value of nearly a million pounds on behalf of Mr William Randolph Hearst, the American newspaper millionaire, has been appointed by him to sell them again. She made his first big purchase in 1925 on receipt of a three-word cable from him at his Californian ranch: “Buy St Donat’s Castle.” Since theii she has had the spending of three-quarters of a million on decoration and furnishings. Many of the tables, chairs, chests, and hangings' were unique of their kind and all in strict period. “Now Mr Hearst, who is nearly 76, wants to liquidate some of his interests,” said Miss Head. Among St Donat’s treasures is a small wooden mazer, or drinking cup. given by James I to David Fergusson and handed down in the Fergusson family for over 300 years. Miss Head bought it for £6.000.

"Mr Hearst’s chief interest was in Gothic,” she said, “and the Gothic collection is probably the finest there is.

“A good many thousands of pounds worth of Gothic furniture, tapestries, and armour have already been sold to private buyers at the castle and museums in various parts of the world. "I expect several shiploads of very good things which have been stored in New York to be sent here. Mr Hearst considers the London market the best in the world.”

Most of the private sales have been arranged through Mr Frank Partridge King Street. Mallett’s, of New Bond Street, have about a fourth of the furniture and works of art. Queen Mary was the first visitor to their display. , The silver will be sent to Christie’s for sale. Another part of this collection fetched over £21,000 at Sotheby’s a year ago. It is not yet settled who shall have the armour and tapestries. But the disposal of nearly £1,000.000 in treasures is merely incidental to Miss Head’s job as managing director of National Magazines, Mr Hearst's English organisation, with one of the highest salaries in British journalism. Her first job, which led directly to her present one, she got through answering an advertisement in the old “Daily News.” In private life her chief preoccupation is her invalid father. She lives very simply, and you will not find a single piece of historic furniture in her London flat.