Tributes as Shropshire artwork expert dies, aged 58

Robert Holden specialised in giving expert advise to those with works of art they wished to sell, and oversaw the transition of many works of art from private collection to national and international galleries and museums.

He ran a firm on Old Burlington Street in London's Mayfair art district, the longest established fine art agency in London - but his home was always near Craven Arms in the south of the county.

Born in January 1956, he was brought up at the family's 17th-century house Sibdon Castle, which he took over the management of in later life, setting up a charitable trust to restore the church in its grounds.

His father, Major Hubert Robert Holden, served as High Sheriff of Shropshire, and his mother, Elizabeth was descended from both George Herbert and Clive of India.

He married Susan Emily Frances Rowley, daughter of Sir Joshua Rowley, in 1988 and is survived by her and their son Hubert and daughter Lucia.

In Shropshire he was instrumental in setting up the Conservative Association in the south of the county.

David Evans, Shropshire councillor for Craven Arms, said: "I've known Mr Holden for a long time. He was an upstanding man, he was always straightforward and very welcoming when you went to see him and he stood up for what he believed in.

"He will be sadly missed by everyone in the Sibdon parish and the wider community elsewhere."

Mr Holden attended Eton before starting work as an art dealer in London. In 1977 he set up Thomas, Holden & Mould with Sir William Thomas and Anthony Mould, after which he branched out on his own, expanding his business to advise on sales of decorative arts, furniture and house contents.

He helped to negotiate sales from private collections into museums such as the Ashmolean, which bought Eduard Manet's Portrait of Mademoiselle Claus from John Singer Sergeant in 2012, drawing donations from both the Heritage Lottery Fund and the Art Fund.

In 2011 he oversaw the private sale of Nicolas Poussin's The Sacrament of Ordination from the trustees of Belvior Castle to the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth at £15 million.

In 2013 he negotiated the sale of Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows by John Constable, owned by the heirs of the late Lord Ashton of Hyde, to the Tate for £23.1 million - after the work had been hanging in the National Gallery with the permission of Lord Ashton for more than three decades.

He also brokered deals such as the sale of the private collection of Lord Leverhulme, housed at Thornton Manor in the Wirral, which appeared at auction at Sotheby's in for £5 million in 2001, and masterminded the sale at Christie's of John William Waterhouse's St Cecilia, which achieved a record £6.6 million, bought by Lord Lloyd-Webber.

Sir Nicholas Serota, director of the Tate, said: "He was unusual in his apparently effortless grace, infinite consideration for others, coupled with a firm purpose which occasionally showed in a flash of steel."

He died on September 9 and a private funeral and thanksgiving service were held at Sibdon Church on September 26.