eleanor ‘kitty’ davies - A LIFETIME COLLECTING
DORE & REES ARE DELIGHTED TO OFFER
THE ELEANOR DAVIES collection
Eleanor Margaret Davies was born in 1941 to Mary Margaret and Rowland Davies, of Bleak House in Stourport. Eleanor was very quickly nicknamed Kitty – no-one could remember why by the time I knew her. Even as a small girl, she was exuberant, outgoing and creative. Her letters home from school are full of friends, animals, outings and projects, and often illustrated with drawings and scraps.
Kitty was a member of the Worth / Baldwin family, whose relatives included Stanley Baldwin, Rudyard Kipling, WH Auden, Sir Edward Poynter, Edward Burne-Jones and the family who owned the Bond Worth carpet company. As a girl, her mother was friendly with Burne-Jones; she loved the Pre-Raphaelites and the William Morris ethos, which was all handed down the maternal line.
Kitty was particularly close to her mother; they shared a love of politics, gardening, art and antiques Initially to support her mother, she moved back to the family home in Devon in the 1970’s. She became more involved with the family’s Victoriana collection and was a frequent visitor to all car boot sales, auctions and antique fairs. She participated in the trade, dealing in curiosities, china and paintings. She and her mother collected Victorian needlework – especially christening shawls – which they sold for Cancer Research. The house in Devon was filled with surprises; a house made of shells; birds, feathers and seaweed in domes, a life-size doll, Louis Wain-type dancing cats and bears – as well as the grander paintings of horses, landscapes and the elegance of mahogany furniture reminiscent of country living.
Recovering Kitty’s collections has felt like a domestic archeological dig; excavating layers of time and retrieving real objects that had been so obscure as memories I thought I’d imagined them. It reconnected me with my childhood and all my fond memories of my Aunty Kitty. We used to have so many adventures – boot sales, antique fairs, collectors markets, gardening, dog walks, dog shows and painting on the moors; some good shopping trips – all reached in her battered mini. She always called me “Dolly Daydream” – and stumbling back into it all felt like the best “end of a dream” sequence one might have.
Recently, I’ve had the odd experience of taking her some of her own beloved things to her in her nursing home to try to make it feel more homely for her. She doesn’t recognise her treasures, but she’s always delighted by them, and congratulates me on being so clever as to find them – so we relive those sales and fairs and shows, and get a second round of pleasure from them.
Written by Kitty’s niece, Siobhan Davies
Items from the Eleanor Davies Collection will be offered in the following auctions:
SELECT INTERIORS - 29 JUNE 2022
JEWELLERY, WATCHES AND OBJECTS OF VERTU - 6 JULY 2022