Jeffrey Archer is selling the stopwatch that was used when Sir Roger Bannister became the first man to run a mile in under four minutes.
The proceeds will go to Oxford University Athletics Club, where Bannister strode into history and where Archer was a former president. The provenance of the stopwatch is destined to make it a highlight of the star-studded charity auction at Christie’s on June 27, organised by Lord Archer of WestonSuper-Mare.
The following day the best-selling author, fundraiser, politician and former prisoner will sell off a selection of his art collection. It is estimated to be worth up to £100 million and includes works by Monet, Rodin, Warhol, Sickert, Renoir and Vuillard.
The sales will return Lord Archer to the spotlight after a few years when he has been relatively quiet.
Lord Archer told The Times that he had decided to sell some of his possessions after reaching his 70th birthday last year and wanted to reorganise his affairs before his estate was subject to inheritance tax. He plans to leave nearly everything to Mary Archer, the loyal wife who was praised for her “fragrance” by the judge in Lord Archer’s 1987 libel action against the Daily Star. Their two sons will each receive ten pictures from the collection and he has already promised six works each to the Ashmolean in Oxford (including a Sisley and a Pissarro) and the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge (including a Henry Moore, an Eric Gill and a Picasso).
Lord Archer will be the guest auctioneer for the June 27 evening charity sale and has persuaded about 20 of his bestknown friends to offer lots.
Baroness Thatcher, Sir Ian Botham and Lord Lloyd-Webber may contribute, Lord Archer hinted, although the only consignors named at this stage are Bernie Ecclestone, the Formula One ringmaster, and Laurence Graff, the New Bond Street diamond dealer.
Mr Ecclestone is donating a weekend at the Monte Carlo Grand Prix in aid of Great Ormond Street Hospital, while Mr Graff will provide the auction hammer, studded with £25,000 worth of diamonds. An art collector in Japan has offered to throw in a Monet and a Picasso together worth about £30 million to raise funds for victims of the Japanese tsunami, Lord Archer added.
Overall, “it will unquestionably be the biggest individual auction I’ve ever done”, he said. Lord Archer is a keen auctioneer and has raised more than £39 million for charity since Norma Major first asked him to stand in at short notice for a constituency event in Huntingdon in the 1980s. He now does up to 30 a year and has done two auctions in the past week to raise funds for victims of the Christchurch earthquake and the Brisbane floods while on the New Zealand and Australia legs of his current book tour.
No comments:
Post a Comment