These brackets claim an illustrious provenance with one of the greatest collectors of the 19th century, Alfred de Rothschild (1842-1918). He assembled a magnificent collection at his home in Buckinghamshire, Halton House. The house was built in the style of a French château, similar to his cousin Ferdinand’s nearby home Waddesdon Manor, and is an expression of the famous ‘Goût Rothschild’. The house was constructed according to plans by the architect William R. Rogers and was completed in 1884. Along with his London home at Seamore Place, Halton was the repository for many treasures displayed in opulent interiors. A publication commissioned by Alfred to illustrate his collections includes the brackets, illustrated supporting sculptural groups on each side of the fireplace in the Lawrence Room, also known as the South Drawing Room.
On Alfred’s death Halton House passed to his nephew Lionel Nathan de Rothschild (1882-1918) who sold the majority of the contents at auction in 1918. The house was subsequently sold to the RAF who established the headquarters of RAF Halton in the building in 1920.
Lionel purchased the Exbury estate in Hampshire in 1919 and after a neo-Georgian reconstruction in the 1920s, our brackets became part of the collection. Lionel established a world-famous garden at Exbury that contains to this day one of the largest collections of plants in the United Kingdom.