The gala auction will be held in a marquee in the gardens of Dr Okey’s magnificent home, Denham Court, in Ingleburn, near Campbelltown, NSW, on May 15 and 16, 2010.
On offer are rarities including a longcase clock by the legendary Sydney maker James Oatley (Lot 17 ), a highly important cedar and casuarina bowfront sideboard by Lawrence Butler and a cedar and casuarina desk attributed to Edward Angus Wilson as well as any number of beds, wardrobes and tables. A number of lots carry estimates in the region of $100,000 - which is very much in the stratosphere for Australian furniture, though prices in excess of $1 million are relatively commonplace for early American furniture in its home market.
Denham Court is a National Trust-listed home complete with a John Verge-designed foyer, set on six acres. It was purchased in a run-down state in 1973 by Dr Okey, who made it virtually his life’s work to meticulously restore it - even bringing in stone from quarries in Liverpool, England, to complete it.
Originally it was part of a vast 500 acre estate granted in the 1800s to the colony’s judge advocate, Richard Atkins, according to Campbelltown City Council‘s website. When it passed to a Captain Richard Brooks as settlement for a debt, Brooks named it after his ancestral home in England, moving to the property with his large family in 1825 and calling in renowned colonial architect John Verge to design additions to his house. Brooks added a private chapel and harboured visions of an entire community where he would be the local squire, but suffered the unfortunate fate of being gored to death by a bull less than 10 years later. The property then passed to various members of his family, being extensively subdivided in 1884.
In the 1970s there was even a move to adopt the name Denham Court as the name of the whole suburb.
With Dr Okey now in ill health, the home and its gardens are too large for him to maintain. The house itself is on the market, along with its sumptuous contents.
Much of the furniture was acquired privately, it seems, though Sotheby’s says a few pieces went through the auction houses. Several items have been noted or described in various journals.
Among them is, a cedar, casuarina, musk, myrtle, tallowwood and Oyster Bay pine tambour-front desk or Boston secretary (Lot 220 ) attributed to Edward Augustus Wilson, an American convict who was transported to Hobart in 1840. Wilson and the desk were the subject of an article in Australiana magazine by eminent dealer and Australiana authority John Hawkins - in which it is stated the desk was sold to a “prominent collector” by Hawkins and another Tasmania-based dealer, Warwick Oakman. The estimate is $60,000 to $80,000.
The same article refers to the Irish convict cabinetmaker Lawrence Butler, to whom is attributed the cedar and casuarina bowfronted six-leg sideboard (Lot 321 ) almost 2 metres wide which dates from around 1805. Its estimate is $150,000 to $250,000.
