Colin Tennant, more lately the 3rd Lord Glenconner, was “born into great privilege,” he once said, and used some of its trappings to acquire and transform the Carribbean island of Mustique. He shaped it into one of the storied playgrounds of the 1960s and ‘70s, a jet set haven for rock stars and royalty. Then he moved on, with his pet elephant, to a fabulous villa in St. Lucia. Bonhams will sell its highly unusual contents this September in London.
The auction features the trappings of a man with highly developed taste and unusual means. The collection includes Caribbean and Anglo Indian furniture, along with ceramics, jewelry, Islamic and Indian art, and examples of natural history from the South Seas. There are images, as well, by such photographers as the Earl of Lichfield, documenting not just a lost era of unusual style and antic indulgence, but also the life of an eccentric aristocrat who embodied it with considerable gusto.
Read more at Bonhams.
