The sale at Gildings (15% buyer’s premium) in Market Harborough on September 3 included 10 lots from the family of Albert and Nora McGill – influential industrialists credited with a key role in the founding of Russia’s cotton mill industry in the mid-19th century.
As a prominent British family living in 19th century Moscow, the McGills formed close family ties with other British families based in the city as well as the Russian aristocracy. Albert’s first cousin, Emma McGill, married Henry ‘Allan’ Talbot Bowe who had close ties with the Fabergé lineage, and became their retail representative in London in the early 20th century.
The jewellery elements of this consignment (most of them with the assayer’s mark for Ivan Sergeyevich Lebedkin of Moscow 1898-1914) generated competition way above modest expectations.