PHOTO ESSAY: Treasures from 64-room Harcroft House sold at auction

Leading auction house Strauss & Co managed the auction for the contents of Harcroft House, a historic 64-room mansion in the heart of Constantia. Picture: Armand Hough/African News Agency (ANA)

Leading auction house Strauss & Co managed the auction for the contents of Harcroft House, a historic 64-room mansion in the heart of Constantia. Picture: Armand Hough/African News Agency (ANA)

Published Nov 19, 2019

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Cape Town - The contents of Harcroft House, the historic 64-room manor house in Constantia, have been sold 70 years after the Ryecroft family acquired it.

As many as 558 lots of the contents of Harcroft were auctioned yesterday, and the house, garden and 7.6 hectares of land are also up for sale. Collectors vied in three different sessions and lots were sold from R200 to R200 000.

The land is on the most southern part of Klaasenbosch Farm and a portion of erf 118, Constantia, which had been subdivided in 1886, according to auctioneer Strauss & Co.

Charles Ryecroft, an English businessman, and his wife, Muriel Susan Elizabeth Parsons, bought the house in 1951. Ryecroft owned a rubber

plantation and factory in Malaysia, started by his father, George Henry Ryecroft, in partnership with John Hartley in 1919. The plantation and house were both named Harcroft as a combination of the surnames of both partners.

Leading auction house Strauss & Co managed the auction for the entire contents of Harcroft House, an historic 64 roomed Arts and Crafts mansion in the heart of Constantia in Cape Town. Picture: Armand Hough/African News Agency(ANA)

Picture: Armand Hough/African News Agency(ANA)

Picture: Armand Hough/African News Agency(ANA)

Picture: Armand Hough/African News Agency(ANA)

After the Japanese invasion of Malaysia in 1941, Charles and Muriel escaped to Singapore. Then Muriel went to Bombay and after that to Cape Town, while Charles was imprisoned by the Japanese. After the end of the war and Charles’s liberation, the couple went back to England and finally sold their properties in Malaysia to a Chinese couple.

“Charles and Muriel named their estate Harcroft. The similarities between the two properties are

numerous and antiques from Harcroft, Malaysia, found a new home in Harcroft, Cape Town,” revealed the auctioneer. “Added to these were others which confirm their superb taste as collectors. The emphasis lies in the oriental - and jades, ivories, scroll paintings and furniture are a testament to this.”

When Muriel died, Charles married a “long-time friend” of his wife, Louise Jackson.

Louise survived Charles and she lived in the Harcroft House until 2014.

Since then, the Harcroft Foundation, the Harcroft Trust Ltd and its wholly-owned subsidiary Gepac Ltd (owner of the Harcroft Estate), passed to Louise Rycroft’s daughter, Joan Misplon.

Sibille Rutherford, a collector since she was 18, visited the auction looking for specific “crystal lots”. The most appreciated articles are the ones from the East, she said, referring to antiques acquired by the couple in Malaysia and during their travels to China and Japan.

Family representatives who were present at the auction declined being interviewed.

Picture: Armand Hough/African News Agency(ANA)

Picture: Armand Hough/African News Agency(ANA)

Picture: Armand Hough/African News Agency(ANA)

Picture: Armand Hough/African News Agency(ANA)

Picture: Armand Hough/African News Agency(ANA)

Picture: Armand Hough/African News Agency(ANA)

Picture: Armand Hough/African News Agency(ANA)

Picture: Armand Hough/African News Agency(ANA)

Picture: Armand Hough/African News Agency(ANA)

@TheCapeArgus

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