Horses to gallop off at sale
A pair of ceramic Chinese horses with a link to Hollywood are expected to raise between £2,500 and £3,500 when they go under the hammer.
The stoneware horses date from the late Qing Dynasty and Shrewsbury-based auctioneer and Asian art specialist at Halls, Alexander Clement, said: "These figures are of exquisite quality and to have such a heart-warming story associated with them only makes them more desirable."
They belonged to John O’Gorman (1911-1977) , a British makeup artist for the Hollywood motion picture industry.
His career began in 1947 with Mine Own Executioner starring Dulcie Gray. Among no fewer than 69 film credits he worked on the first James Bond picture Dr. No in 1962 with Ursula Andress as well as Charade (1963) with Audrey Hepburn, There’s a Girl in my Soup (1970) with Peter Sellers, the Beatles vehicle A Hard Day’s Night (1964) and The Yellow Rolls-Royce (1964) with Ingrid Bergman.
Such was his reputation that actresses like Ingrid Bergman, Ursula Andress and Raquel Welch specifically requested him to do their makeup on shoots.
It was during the filming of The Yellow Rolls Royce with Ingrid Bergman on location in Rome that he spotted a pair of Chinese glazed stoneware horses in an antique shop.
Though he admired them greatly they were just beyond his means. He mentioned them in passing to Bergman but thought no more about them until the shoot wrapped and everyone was leaving. The movie star took him to one side and said that there was a crate waiting for him with a present inside. On opening the crate he was delighted to discover the Chinese horses he had so wanted.
The horses remained in the family and were passed down to his son and daughter on his death in 1977. Reunited for this auction, the O’Gorman-Bergman horses will feature in the auction house's Asian Art sale on April 25.
