Some antiques and their captivating backstories

An item is considered an antique when it is older than 100 years. I am quite sure that while buying an antique or even while looking at one, the first question that popups in someone’s mind is the back story behind it. The history of any antique is what makes it exceptional.  

From a horror painting to a dinner set used by three prime ministers, we have made a list of some of the antiques with their exciting and unique histories. 

1. A locket with Lord Byron’s hair 

For nearly 200 years, a clump of George Gordon Byron’s light brunette hair has been held in a gold and enamel locket. Lord Byron is a well-known English poet famous for being a part of the romantic movement. Many young people still look up to him. 

In 1824, Lord Byron died of a fever during the Greek War of Independence against the Ottomans. After his death, Count Pietro Gamba, an Italian, took the lock of hair from his body. Gamba was Byron’s companion and stayed with him during his last days. This Italian companion then gifted the delicate wisp of hair locked to another friend, Sir James Emerson. Gamba carved the date 1825 on the locket for Tennant.

The locket was sold for £18,750 in 2020.

• The ghostly portrait 

In 2019, a painting was auctioned in an antique show. The owner of the painting claimed it to be haunted, as she revealed to have heard strange voices coming out from the image. The folk art belongs to a young sea caption who lost his life during his journey at sea in 1794. The portrait of young caption Aaron Delano has been hanging in the wall since then and has been haunting the family for years till the time they decided to sell it. The owner claimed that she has heard footsteps coming from the painting.

The ladder fell from under the owner’s husband on the day they were taking down the painting from the wall. Nobody was injured, and the pair shrugged it off as Captain Delano’s mischievous conduct. Although the history of the painting is quite fascinating, the actual reason behind its high price is the illustration of the fine details, tools, and work of Caption Delano. The auction value of this antique is $8000 to $1200. 

• The ancient sunglasses

These ancient sunglasses only remotely resemble their modern counterparts, but they were made for the same purpose. The design of the sunglasses, the small eye holes, for instance, was to protect the eyes from ample sunlight. Often the glasses were used in the wintertime when the sun glare becomes brighter during snowy days. Mostly, people from the arctic regions of Canada used them.

• An elegant dinner set used by three prime ministers

This Qing dynasty dinner service was recently sold at Lyon & Turnbull’s Fine Asian & Islamic Works of Art Auction and was used by three Georgian prime ministers. It included William Pitt the Older, who served as the Prime Minister of Great Britain in the mid-18th century, Pitt the Younger, who was the prime minister in 1793, and finally William Wyndham, who became England’s Prime minister in 1806. The 46-piece dinner service named “Bianco- Sopra-Bianco” was specially made for the house of the Pitt family in Boconnoc in Cornwall. 

The valued white porcelain, which was beautifully painted in a quatrefoil cartouche with a white intricately carved scrolling flowers field having birds and deers, drew bids from all over the world but was ultimately won by a phone bidder from China for £8,750.

• Gold Leica 2 Luxus Camera

The owner of the magnificent Gold Leica 2 Luxus camera claimed that he had owned the camera for 45 years, and he never thought it to be something out of the ordinary. The owner of the camera was lucky, as it turned out, that it was one of the only four cameras made till this time. The unusual antique piece was sold for £320,000 in Hong Kong.