Blockbuster country-house sales have become a rarity in the past few decades, so Bonhams‘ sale of the contents of magnificent Trelissick House represents quite an occasion and an opportunity to buy a piece of ceramic history.

Trelissick, on the banks of the Fal Estuary, was owned by the distinguished collector Leonard Daneham Cunliffe, a deputy governor of the Bank of England, who spotted the property while on a boat on the Fal. He left Trelissick to his stepdaughter, Ida Copeland, the Conservative MP who beat Oswald Mosley to the Stoke-on-Trent seat. She bequeathed Trelissick to the National Trust, although the family carried on living there. Now, her grandson, William Copeland, is selling the family treasures because he’s downsizing.

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The showpieces of the sale, which is estimated to realise up to £1.5 million and has 800-plus lots, are a pair of Herring paintings commissioned by the Copeland family, an unrivalled collection of Spode china-Ida’s husband, Ronald, was president of the family ceramics company- plus wine, furniture and a Chinese Imperial flambé-glazed bottle vase with an incised Qianlong seal estimated at £70,000-£100,000. The sale is on July 23-24 in the estate grounds (www.bonhams.com).

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