A WALL MOUNTED BRONZE FOUNTAIN

• Lot Sold $7,500 (Hammer Price)
• $9,000 (Hammer Price with Buyer's Premium)

centred with a oval bronze bowl with slightly rounded conical sides, surmounted by a spout flanked by scrolling leafage and between stylised winged seahorses, the heads turned in opposite directions and each having one wing wrapping to support the bowl, the rectangular bronze back plate designed to be wall mounted
92CM WIDE, 51CM DEEP, 49.5CM HIGH

PROVENANCE
The Collection of the Late Charles Lloyd Jones

 The late Charles Benyon Lloyd Jones, CMG (1932-2010) was a leading figure in Sydney business and social circles from the 1960s. Retailer, entrepreneur, philanthropist, and modest society lion, "Mr Charles" was the last member of his family to control the retailing empire of David Jones, becoming chairman following his elder brother David's death in 1961. While the company passed out of the family's hands on his watch, suffering a significant decline in business fortune during the early 1980s, Charles must also be credited with a number of entrepreneurial innovations, including the creation of David Jones Properties and the establishment of the David Jones' Awards for Fashion Excellence, later to become the Australian Fashion Awards. A man of considerable but understated personal style, Charles was also responsible for the firm's adoption of the black and white hound's tooth brand, supposedly inspired by the example of one of his mother's bottles of Miss Dior perfume.
Charles inherited a great love of art (and an important collection) from his father, Sir Charles Lloyd Jones (1878-1958), a keen amateur artist who studied under Julian Ashton and was close friends with Sir William Dobell. Sir Charles was also a co-founder of the magazine Art in Australia and was at one time Vice-President of the Art Gallery of New South Wales. Young Charles, too, was to become a trustee of the Gallery, serving from 1972 to 1983; the Bicentennial wing took shape under his Presidency, as did the Art Gallery Foundation, of which he was a founding benefactor. Father and son both took an active interest in the David Jones' Art Gallery, which became under the directorship of Robert Haines (1961-1976) one of the Australia's most stylish and ambitious commercial galleries, and one of very few which regularly exhibited European and oriental paintings, sculpture and decorative arts.
While the family's 1850s Woollahra mansion, 'Rosemont', was something of a Victorian pile, its grandeur and gloom were relieved by Charles and his mother Hannah's happy arrangements of paintings, period furniture and flowers. An advocate of modern design in furniture and consumer goods, Charles was indeed something of a cultural diplomat; he was a member of the Italian, French and Finnish chambers of commerce, and served as consul-general for Finland. Although the Jones' estates and collections were dispersed as their fortunes declined, Charles nevertheless retained in his possession a number of his father's paintings and a few special favourite objects. Sotheby's Australia is honoured to be able to offer these items, survivals and souvenirs of a remarkable life and taste.