Auction Catalogue

5 September 2017

Starting at 2:00 PM

.

Jewellery, Watches and Objects of Vertu

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Lot

№ 83

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5 September 2017

Hammer Price:
£1,800

A Charles I silver heart-shaped memorial locket, circa 1649, the front engraved with a heart pierced by two arrows, and the words ‘I Live and Dy in loyalty’, the reverse engraved ‘Prepared bee to follow me C R’, opening to reveal to one side a small oval badge/medalet with profile portrait of Charles I facing left, with long hair and plain falling collar, after the portrait by medallist Thomas Rawlins,(1620-1670), the other side engraved ‘Martyr populy’, on integral suspensory loop, dimensions length 21mm x 19mm. £800-1200

Provenance: By family repute, after the death of Charles I, the locket was given by Queen Henrietta Maria to Abraham Symonds, banker to King Charles.

The locket came into the possession of
Admiral Sir William Tennant, KCB CBE MVO DL (1890-1963), British naval officer, who oversaw the evacuation of the army in 1940 from the beaches of Dunkirk. It was said that without his cool head and organisational skills, Operation Dynamo - as the evacuation was called - would not have been the success it was.

Tennant served as Captain of the battle-cruiser HMS Repulse, which was sunk by the Japanese in 1942. In June 1944, now an Admiral, he was put in charge of the artificial Mulberry harbours that were towed to the Normandy beaches, enabling the allies to supply their troops. He was knighted in 1945, and on his retirement in 1949, returned to live in the family home at Upton-upon-Severn. He became Lord Lieutenant of the county in 1950 and was given the freedom of the city of Worcester in 1960.

On his death, the locket was bequeathed to the present vendor’s mother, Admiral Sir William’s god daughter. The lot includes two letters from Admiral Sir William Tennant’s brother, R. D Tennant, solicitor at Lord & Parker, of Worcester, regarding the transfer of the locket to the beneficiary.

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These memorial lockets were worn as declarations of loyalty to the former King and his queen after his execution in 1649.
Similar examples can be seen in the Victoria and Albert Museum and the British Museum.

See:
The English Civil Wars by Jerome J Platt & Arleen Kay Platt, Vol 1, p292-293: pub Spink London