Tea at Trianon: The Downton Abbey Auction

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Saturday, July 19, 2025

The Downton Abbey Auction

From Elle Decor:

The Julian Fellowes-created show first aired in the UK in 2010. Following the lives of the Crawley family, headed by the Earl of Grantham, the drama unfolds the day after the RMS Titanic went down in 1912. The show ran for six seasons, with 52 episodes, ending in the year 1925. But it has since had the kind of long-tail interest that few other TV dramas get with two feature-length films, the first of which was released in 2019. Now, 15 years after the first episode aired, the final installment—and third film—is on the horizon, and titled, fittingly, The Grand Finale, premiering in September.
As if to confirm that it will, actually, be the end, 120 prop pieces are to be auctioned off at Bonhams, in London, starting on August 18th and running through September 16th. The pieces on the block comprise a spectrum of fan-enticing fodder. For example, the Grantham family car, a 1925 Sunbeam: "The 20/60 was considered by many to be far superior to the Rolls Royce,” reads the auction footnotes. “First seen in Season 2, the Sunbeam was used throughout Seasons 3, 4 and 5, and in all three films.” The estimated price is between £25,000 (roughly $33,000) and £35,000 (or $47,000).
The auction will also include wardrobe pieces like Jim Carter as Carson’s “three-piece morning suit” (£600 - £800) and Dame Maggie Smith as Violet Crawley’s blue dress (£1,000 - £1,500). (Read more.)