Inner Worlds

Few people even in Bonhams have quite as many stories as Charlie Thomas, Director of House Sales and Private & Iconic Collections. During the Bonhams sale of the contents of the Savoy in 2007, for instance, he “basically moved in” to the then empty hotel. Then in 2011 he went to St Lucia to value the contents of Lord Glenconner’s property. He had regular meetings with Sir Michael Caine during the sale of his personal collection in 2022 – “Michael and Shakira were wonderful,” he says. He’s rummaged around the attics at Chequers and Dunrobin, and, most recently, he’s been on the set of hit TV series The Crown.

“House Sales and Private & Iconic Collections are all about telling the story,” says Charlie. “It’s not necessarily about the individual objects – it’s more the story of how that object came into that collection.” He gives the example of spending time at Nicky Haslam’s Hunting Lodge when putting together Haslam’s sale in 2019. “I absolutely adored it, and Nicky was a joy to work with,” he says. “Everything had a story. It took so long, because you’d pick up a book and he’d say, ‘Oh, Andy Warhol gave me that,’ then you’d pick up a drawing and ‘Oh, that was done by Cecil Beaton’ or ‘David Hockney gave me that’ – it was just completely nuts and I loved it.”

It was Charlie’s love of history and storytelling that led him into the auction world, beginning his career as a porter at Bonhams Guildford. “The connection between art, antiques, and history is something you really get to feel with an auction house,” he stresses. “There’s such a fast turnover, and you get to handle so many amazing objects every day – and, with House Sales, you start by seeing them in all in someone’s home.” For Charlie, seeing objects in use is how it should be: “I love the practicality of antique furniture and I think it’s very important that antiques are used in everyday living – they exist to be used and enjoyed,” he says.

Living with antiques passed down generations – perhaps even kept in the same country house for hundreds of years – can mean hidden treasure awaits the specialist. “You never know what you’re going to find,” says Charlie. “Every valuation has the potential for a Howard Carter moment.” He remembers walking into a room at Lord Glenconner’s home in St Lucia to find a solid silver bed. He also recalls one of his personal highlights: finding a painting by Daniel Quigley entitled The Godolphin Arabian in the collection of Lord Harlech. “It had a certain brown hue over it from years of tobacco smoke, and went onto sell for £100,000. It had been protected by a layer of nicotine,” he jokes.

Exploring the attics and cellars of Dunrobin Castle in 2021 provided another opportunity for a big find, though not without complications. “There was no electricity, and we were in Scotland in the winter with limited daylight. There was then the issue of getting everything down tight winding staircases.” Dunrobin’s forgotten treasures ended up achieving more than £700,000.

The Bonhams Network helps with certain logistical problems. “I’m one of the few people to work with almost everyone at Bonhams,” says Charlie. “Having a home team in almost every country is definitely one of our strengths, and just one area in which we’re getting only stronger.”

For Charlie, there is no single triumph he chooses to pinpoint across an impressive career so far (other than, as he is keen to emphasise, meeting his wife at Bonhams). There have been simply too many impressive sales. He could mention bringing the hammer down on the Sir Terence Conran collection in London in 2022, or the white-glove Jackie Collins sale in Los Angeles in 2017.

“I remember reading my first Jackie Colins novel the same year we sold Lord Harlech’s estate. I just thought it was bonkers to have such a brilliantly diverse year.” He stresses that his favourite part of his job is working with the families behind the collections. “It can be such a long process, often over a year from the initial valuation to the sale day, and you often end up becoming friends with the consigners.

That’s one of our real strengths, these relationships we build. I often feel sad when an auction ends,” he says. But, of course, it has to be on to the next valuation.

The next sale for Charlie is the auction of the costumes, props and sets from the Netflix series The Crown. “Nothing like this has been done before, to sell basically a whole production,” says Charlie. He finds the process of putting together an auction to be much like making a film. “We’re effectively just like a production. The auction, just like a movie, lasts a few hours, but it’s the masses of work that goes on behind the scenes that makes it possible. Our cataloguers are our researchers, art-handlers are like our set designers, then we have press and marketing before the auctioneer takes centre stage on the day.” At this point in his career, Charlie certainly is an outstanding director.

Sasha Thomas is Senior Press Officer at Bonhams.

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