AN IMPORTANT group of 18th-century English portraits has come to light in Co Tipperary and will be sold next week “because there is no male heir to inherit” the paintings after 260 years in the same family’s ownership.
The five oil paintings were commissioned by the Randall family of west Sussex in 1751. The artist was George Smith of Chichester, an English portraitist and landscape painter whose work hangs in public art galleries in London including the Tate Britain and the Victoria and Albert Museum.
The paintings were regarded as family heirlooms and passed down through generations of the Randall family with a legal stipulation that they be inherited only by “men with the name William as one of their first names”.
The current owner is John William George Randall (83), who now lives in Co Tipperary. He inherited the pictures from his father, Charles William Randall, who died in England in 1971.
Mr Randall said he was “the last of the line” and there was “no male issue” to inherit the paintings. He has two daughters and four granddaughters but “they are not interested”.
Mr Randall decided to sell the paintings because there was “no space” to hang them in his new home – in a retirement village in Nenagh – where he has settled with his wife, Elspeth (84).
The paintings will be auctioned by Victor Mitchell Auctioneers in Roscrea next Wednesday afternoon, August 31st.
Auctioneer Anne-Louise Mitchell said the paintings would be sold in three lots with a total estimate of €4,000 and are expected to attract interest from buyers in Britain. The five paintings depict a William Randall (born 1705), wife Mary, sons John and William, and a niece, Hesther.
Mr Randall moved to Ireland nine years ago because he wanted to retire to an English-speaking country but did not wish to return to his native England, which he left 66 years ago.
Mr Randall joined the British army as a teenager in 1945 during the final months of the second World War and was posted to Bombay, now Mumbai. There he transferred into the Indian army and witnessed the final years of the British Raj before the country achieved independence in 1947. He said he “turned down an offer to become aide-de-camp to Lord Mountbatten” – the last viceroy of India – because he “wanted to go farming”.
Mr Randall moved to Africa and settled in northern Rhodesia, where he became head of a dairy company “and married the boss’s daughter – a Scot”. When that country also left the British empire in 1964 and became Zambia, Mr Randall became chief executive of the nationalised dairy produce board. Since retirement he lived in France, Spain and Switzerland before moving to Ireland.