Auction house to sell rare miniature of Thomas Fones, Mayor of Plymouth in 1620
Cheffins in Cambridge is due to sell a rare miniature portrait dating back to 1612 of Thomas Fones, Mayor of Plymouth in 1620, the year the Mayflower sailed. The sale will take place on the 28th and 29th November.
Painted by Isaac Oliver, one of the leading artists of the period, miniatures of this quality are a rarity on the auction market.
The work is being sold by the estate of Sir Richard Parsons, who was a descendant of Thomas Fones. Sir Richard Parsons was a well-known career diplomat and crime fiction writer, who throughout the 1970s and 1980s was successively British Ambassador to Hungary, Spain and Sweden. His books include The Moon Pool, The Den of the Basilisk, Howling at the Moon, and under his pseudonym, John Haythorne, Mandrake in Granada and Mandrake in the Monastery amongst others. Parsons left the Diplomatic Service in 1987 and retired to Whittington, near Kings Lynn, where he focused on his writing and gave talks on his diplomatic adventures at the town’s literary festival, before passing away in 2016.
Sarah Flynn, Head of Paintings at Cheffins comments: “The Isaac Oliver miniature is an important piece within the Sir Richard Parsons Collection. Oliver was a master of his trade and these items are rarely seen on the open market today. Painted the year that the Mayflower carried the Pilgrim Fathers to the New World, this image of the enterprising and dashing Thomas Fones is set to draw interest from both private collectors and trade buyers.”
Thomas Fones was born around 1550 in Bristol and died in 1637 in Plymouth. He was a Free Merchant of Bristol in 1599 and Mayor of Plymouth from 1611 to 1612 and from 1619 to 1620.
Also included in the sale are 500 lots of furniture, fine art, ceramics and collectors’ items.
Auction: The Fine Art Sale – 28th and 29th November, 11am onwards
Viewing Times: Sunday 25th November 10am – 12pm | Monday 26th November 10am – 5pm | Tuesday 27th November 10am – 6pm
Location: Cheffins, Clifton House, 1-2 Clifton Road, Cambridge, UK, CB1 7EA
For more information, contact the Fine Art team on fine.art@cheffins.co.uk, or t: 01223 213343
