Catalogue of highly important Old Anlaby sale .
From the files of Magnetic Island researcher Gary Davies , undergoing a Spring clean , has surfaced this fascinating 1978 catalogue of the most interesting and varied contents of the Dutton clan, accumulated over a period from 1839. The clearance took place during the ownership of Professor Geoffrey Dutton , wartime pilot , republican, poet, publisher, author who sold the property and with his wife, Ninette, moved to a smaller residence .
Included in the sale were works of art by Dutton's mother , Emily , said to have partly inspired Mrs Polkinghorn in Nobel writer Patrick White's story The Letter . White described her as a great and capricious beauty , who played the piano, the violin and, like her husband , Henry Hampden Dutton , enjoyed motoring . In 1907-8 , he , with co driver/ mechanic Murray Aunger, made the first car crossing from Adelaide to Darwin in a Clement Talbot; the auction included a 1904/5 Clement Talbot radiator which sold for $1500 , other motoring items including veteran and vintage spare parts, a case of automobile club insignia , drive shafts and a Buick spring , an early Vauxhall radiator , Peugeot shock absorbers.
In 1921 , the epic crossing from Adelaide to Darwin was repeated , but in two Dodge cars , one driven by Emily . More overland adventure followed in 1924 when both she and her husband took part in the expedition to Alice Springs staged by Arctic explorer Vilhjalmur Steffansson and Australian geologist Sir Edgeworth David ; on that occasion , Mrs Dutton drove the Anlaby Dodge light truck .
Listed in the auction catalogue were four stone Tjuringa from Central Australian, possibly obtained during that trip . A note said they were collected at the turn of the century , would not be on public display, but could be shown on request . Also listed was an Elcho Island artefact .
Emily Dutton enjoyed the high society life of Britain and Europe and was in London when her husband , aged 53, died at home in l932 . It was said that "the widow triumphed " for several years in London , much admired by King George 11 of Greece ; her death took place at Anlaby , named after a Yorkshire village , with a magnificent garden , on May 11,1962 .
A number of firearms were included in the auction and may have included a small bore gun she used to pot birds which damaged her roses . In his frank autobiography, Out In The Open , Geoffrey Dutton wrote that his mother once said : " What with rats, the rosellas and the Labor Government you can't grow a decent rose nowadays ."
While entertaining Lady Spencer , whose son John Althorp , Princess Diana's father , an ADC at Government House in Adelaide , she grabbed the gun and shot a bird on the wing-which landed in the centre of Lady Spencer's full teacup.
Dutton also said his mother and father had separate bedrooms and father, an alcoholic, had once taken an axe to mother's locked bedroom door . Geoffrey also referred to the unexplained .22 bullet hole in a window in his father's room .
The catalogue cover illustration , an oil painting on canvas , Three Horses Heads , signed and dated 1861, was by J. F. Herring . If this be Herring senior , (1795-1865), he was renowned for equine art and painted the sides of coaches and made inn signs . A painting such as this would appeal to Anlaby, being the oldest Clydesdale and merino stud in South Australia .
The Russian born painter and sculptor George Washington Lambert (1887-1930) , war artist with the Australian Light Horse in Palestine , fond of horses , painted Emily Dutton's portrait , the dress she wore for the sitting kept in one of her many packed wardrobes. At the auction , Lambert's oil painting, Flower Piece Number 10 , signed 1916, was bought by the Australian National Gallery, Canberra, for $8000.
Sir Hans Heysen was a regular visitor to Anlaby and several of his signed , inscribed and dated drawings and paintings ,done over a period from the l920s to l960, were listed along with works by a number of artists including lithographs after S.T. Gill, entitled Native Spearing Emu and Native Corroboree, plus others ; coloured engraving after George French Angas , one South Australian Botany , published 1847; early maps of South Australia , New Guinea and Africa ; a coloured print after Paul Gaughan , Tahitian Woman .
There was an extensive offering of sterling silver, jewellery , a Lalique blue glass vase , ship decanters, a 12 stop organ by Hugo Wertheim of New York , a brass asthray in the shape of a fly , Persian rugs, fine old china , some pieces bearing various Dutton family initials , a wide range of Chinese and Japanese items from chairs to bowls , netsukes, boxes of lead soldiers , Staffordshire pottery figurines in the form of Bonnie Prince Charlie , Flora standing by a beehive, Italian pottery.
In all there were 1299 items offered for sale ... an extremely rare 17th century carved oak draw-table ; a hand tinted lithograph dated 1813 depicting action between Her Majesty's ship Shannon and the United States frigate Chesapeake , engraved by Joseph Jeakes ; straw sun hats from the famous Liberty store , London ; an American oak child's high chair ; an old English farm dray and a quantity of horse drawn vehicle parts ; a box of Australian garnets; croquet mallets; a folio of interesting historical records including the Federation issue of the South Australian Register , the announcement of Queen Victoria's death , petrol ration tickets , a Trans-Siberian Railway timetable and London wool auction catalogues for 1886; mounted shooting trophies ; a brass ship's bell from HMAS Australia ; two large clam shells ; trays of interesting objects including fossils, Aboriginal artefacts, a walrus tusk, animal skulls , a swordfish sword, rough opals and part of a Mammoth tusk .
People attending the sale were "strictly prohibited " from taking cuttings from the garden, which once employed 14 gardeners .
During the auction , the fountain at Anlaby,above , blew its top, symbolising the end of the fabulous Dutton empire and reign. ( See earlier Little Darwin post WHEN AUSTRALIA RODE ON THE OLD SHEEP'S BACK which contains a 1936 aerial photograph of Anlaby in an article in the American National Geographic Magazine ).
