Hand-drawn 1930s greetings designs from Princess Elizabeth make £4,900 at auction
Her late Majesty Elizabeth II was known as the queen of cards in the greetings industry – and an auction yesterday, 26 October, proved just how true that was with six of her delightful childhood designs going for an amazing £4,900.
The pair of hand-drawn Christmas cards and four printed ones Her Majesty had coloured in were sent by the-then Princess Elizabeth in the 1930s to her governess Marion Crawford, known as Crawfie, and made up four lots at the auction, with a combined estimate of £3,100.
The cards were among 22 lots with which sold for a total of £17,510 hammer price – winning bidders pay 20% commission on top – way above the £12,000 estimate at yesterday’s sale at Spink auctioneers in London’s Bloomsbury, having been left by Crawfie to her solicitor in Aberdeen when she died in 1988.
Auction manager Nik Von Uexkull told PG Buzz: “They went a lot better than we expected. They’re all really lovely things but we were impressed by the total,” and he explained that most items went to overseas collectors.
Her late Majesty became known as the queen of cards at her Diamond Jubilee in 2012 when thousands of cards were delivered from the general public, along with a very special postbag from the GCA of designs from publishers and visitors to PG Live that year. Similar Cards For The Queen initiatives followed in 2016 for her 90th birthday, and last year for the diamond jubilee at the trade show.
The catalogue description for lot 190, which sold at the top estimate of £1,800, said: “Two Christmas Cards, both made and coloured by P.E.. This pencil note is attached to the reverse (with Sellotape) to one card, both with an ink inscription by Princess Elizabeth For Crawfie/From Lilibet. The future Queen has drawn a Christmas tree and horseshoe on one, the other is coloured on the outside, and may be earlier with a more juvenile handwriting (130x100mm, 95x80mm). Rare”
And lot 192, sold on estimate at £1,000, read: “Pair of printed Christmas greetings laid on card (a calendar may have been attached to the reverse of each, no longer present), with a pencil note taped on one ‘Both painted by P.E.’. Presented by the future Queen Elizabeth to her governess, hand coloured by her and signed individually Lilibet and Elizabeth (210x160mm, 210x175mm). Rare.”
Lot 193 was of a 1930s card with a horse on the front that the catalogue states “has been coloured most likely by the sender, the future Queen Elizabeth” who had a life-long love of horses – its hammer price of £1,300 was more than double the £500-£600 estimate and Nik added: “That one went really mad, people like their horses and it was very sweet.”
There was also a Christmas card from 1946 with the initials E and M on the cover, written by Princess Elizabeth “To Crawfie from Elizabeth & Margaret” which was paired with a signed photo of the sisters and a corgi, and sold for £1,500, triple its £500 estimate.
Crawfie had served in the royal household from 1932 to 1947 but reportedly fell out of favour after releasing a book entitled The Little Princesses in 1950, telling of her time with Elizabeth and her younger sister Margaret.
Having always refused to sell her mementoes, it was reported she had bequeathed them to the queen when she died but, in her will, Crawfie left the contents of her detached house to the family of her lawyer George Smith, whose wife and three children had visited her regularly when she moved into a nursing home.
When they sorted through the items, the Smiths found a box containing the handmade cards and other printed designs, signed by the two princesses, from publishers including one by Raphael Tuck – which sold for £750, over its £500 estimate – and a Mabel Lucie Atwell image, as well as signed cards containing photos of the royals.
The auction by Spink, a company that was established in 1666, included papers relating to other British rulers such as Mary Queen Of Scots, King Edward VI, King Charles I, Oliver Cromwell, King Charles II, Queen Anne, George I, George III, William IV, Queen Victoria, with the maximum estimate £1,500 – apart from lot 130, a 1564 document signed Elizabeth R, her majesty’s namesake Queen Elizabeth I which had a £12,000 estimate alone, and eventually sold for £10,000 plus commission.
