on May 7th, 2006Titanic Deck Chair For Auction
© Bonhams
Bonhams auction house is auctioning off a deck chair from the Titanic. After all the bad jokes about rearranging chairs on the proverbial ship going down (like President Bush’s presidential ship for example), it’s actually fascinating to see the real deal. The price, of course, is no deal; the bad karma makes it a tough sale for me.
An original White Star Line steamer deckchair, removed from RMS Titanic, 1912
Varnished beech wood frame with fold-out footrest, brass fittings and incised five pointed star on frame back. Original cane seat replaced, some original varnish survives. When open 53 x 21 1/2 x 39in (135 x 54 1/2 x 99cm)
Estimate: $75,000 - 100,000
Provenance: This chair was admired by Mr. Thomas Barker, a senior photographer on The Cork Examiner newspaper, when visiting on board the RMS Titanic at Queenstown, shortly before her transatlantic departure and was given to him as a souvenir. Thomas Barker’s claim to fame was that he was the photographer who took the well-known picture of the Irish passengers waiting to board in the bow of the paddle tender ‘America’, alongside the railway quay at Cobh(Queenstown). From the vantage point of the paddle box, he took the image of steerage passengers leaving to join the Titanic, which remains the only photograph in existence depicting passengers embarking to join the ship.
Thomas Barker intended to keep the deckchair for use in his garden, but in view of subsequent events no longer wished to keep it, and disposed of it to his housekeeper, Mrs. O’Brien, whose family eventually brought it to England.
A letter of provenance, dated 1959 and addressed to a Mrs. Walker and signed Mrs. Judith Borrow (nee O’Brien), the housekeeper’s daughter, details the history of the deckchair and it is included with this lot together with some photographs and postcards.
The chair was subsequently sold at Phillips Marine sale, London, January 2002.