Shock for British seller as Far East bird paintings hung in his family home for four decades are found to be worth almost £1MILLION
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A British seller has revealed his shock after discovering a series of paintings which had hung in his family homes for 40 years were worth almost £1million.
The silk bird paintings were commissioned by a Chinese emperor in 1721 and had remained in the Far East for almost 200 years until they were acquired by a British army major serving in the First World War.
Major Iain Menzies - who married the daughter of a Nazi party member - brought the paintings home with him and hung them in his country house in Hampshire as well as his property in Hampstead, north London.
After being lost to the official Chinese art records for over 100 years, expert Bill Forrest identified the paintings when invited by the current owner to value the contents of the London property.
The stunned seller, who has chosen to remain anonymous, explained that on top of the seven paintings in the London property, he had 12 more at his family home in Dorset where they had been kept since the 1980s.
Upon removing the paintings from their frames, Mr Forrest discovered all the paintings retained their original accompanying text, an 'extraordinary rarity significantly enhancing their historical value'.
Chinese Qing Dynasty Emperor Kangxi is believed to have commissioned artist Tingxi to produce an encyclopedic album depicting 360 birds alongside a textual description of each.
They were produced in 12 volumes of 30 paintings and were bound together as albums with corresponding text on the opposing page.
Some of the birds depicted are not referenced in classical Chinese or early modern European ornithological texts.
In total, the 19 paintings - first brought to the UK by Major Menzies - have been valued at around £900,000.
Major Menzies, who brought the artwork back while serving in World War One with the Machine Gun Corps, lived out his life in the London property with his wife, Liesel Stottinger who moved to England after fleeing Austria.
Disapproving of her Nazi father's political beliefs, Ms Stottinger became a dancer in the London Casino and later had two children with Major Menzies.
Ms Stottinger's sister also moved to London after a divorce and became a double agent known as 'Gelatine' when recruited by Major Menzies' brother and Special Operations Executive, Major Stewart Menzies.
The seller said: 'The twelve pictures hung in my family home for over 40 years.
'I've always thought they were beautiful but I didn't quite appreciate their historical significance. I was stunned to discover they were potentially worth half a million pounds.
'I've been very attached to them; they were a gift from my late spouse, a descendent of Major Menzies. I hope the next owner cherishes them as my family has.'
Mr Forrest, who works for auctioneers Roseberys of London said the discovery was 'truly extraordinary'.
He said: 'Only a handful of these cultural treasures have surfaced in recent decades, usually as single works or in small groups. Finding 19 at once, especially with their original texts intact, is unprecedented.'
Roseberys has since exhibited the paintings in Hong Kong ahead of their auction in May.
The sale takes place on May 13.
The listing statement reads: 'Two remarkable sets of Imperial Chinese bird paintings, commissioned by Emperor Kangxi have been discovered in UK homes in Dorset and South London.
'The artworks, originally part of an encyclopaedic series by court artist and minister Jiang Tingxi, are now set to be publicly exhibited and auctioned at Roseberys, with a combined estimated value of up to £900,000.
'The paintings were discovered by Bill Forrest, Head of Chinese, Japanese & South East Asian Art at Roseberys Auctioneers, during a routine valuation in South London.
'This initial discovery of seven works led to the revelation of a further twelve paintings in Dorset, both belonging to descendants of Major Iain Menzies (1895-1979), who likely acquired them after the First World War.
'Remarkably, upon removing the paintings from their frames, it was discovered that all retain their original accompanying text, a rarity that significantly enhances their historical value.
