Member login:
Find an antique:
news
MACHIN QUEENS HEAD RELIEF
Posted by IAIN BRUNT EDITOR on 05/08/2010
Rare Machin Queen’s head relief a ‘hat-trick’ for Staffordshire auction house!
When, in autumn 2009, auctioneer Ben Gamble took a commission for an original plaster cast depicting the image of HRH Queen Elizabeth II by stamp and coin artist Arnold Machin RA, he couldn’t quite believe his eyes. Only a year before, Cuttlestones had sold a similar plaque for £15,700 to a London institute during the sale of the contents of the Machin family county house in Garmelow, Staffordshire.
The second plaque sold for an even more impressive £18,000 - and it seems that the success of these two sales caught the eye of the owner of another original Machin cast; now set to come under the hammer at Cuttlestones’ September 10th Fine Art sale. This time, however, there’s a particularly interesting personal connection to Machin, as Ben explains:
“They say that lightening doesn’t strike twice but in our case it’s struck three times! This is an incredibly rare item and was a personal gift from Machin himself to an artist friend who needed inspiration in terms of depth and shading, having been commissioned to create a similar bust of Lord Mountbatten. To assist Machin had presented this plaster cast of what, over the years, has become the world’s most re-produced image.
“We’re confident that this must be one of the last opportunities there will be to purchase an original cast by the artist himself and, once again, anticipate strong interest from Machin fans, philatelist and stamp collectors.”
