- Also known as
-
Samuel Willson
-
primary name: Willson, Samuel
- Details
- individual; British; Male
- Other dates
- 1841-1892 (fl)
- Address
- 393 Strand, London
- Biography
- Major Victorian dealer in works of art.
Samuel Willson is listed as ‘curiosity dealer’ at 14 Bear Street, Leicester Square in 1841. By the mid 1850s he had moved to the Strand where he is listed as ‘curiosity dealer’ at 393 Strand in 1860, being still at the same address n Kelly’s Directory of 1882. He was a major buyer at the Bernal sale in 1855. In partnership with his son by 1871 (see 1871,0613.1). The family sold many very high quality (and doubtless expensive) objects to Franks for the BM between 1852 and 1891.
‘The first portion of the very extensive stock of Messrs Willson & Co, curiosity dealers, 393 Strand, by direction of the executors of the senior partner, deceased’, was sold by Mr Foster, on 22nd April, 1880. The auction comprised, ‘antique, carved, marquetrie and buhl furniture, Old Dresden, Sèvres, Oriental & English China, majolica, bronzes, clocks etc’. The senior partner was presumably Samuel Willson himself. The son continued trading as Willson & Son, and is recorded as buying at the Hamilton Palace sale in 1882 and at the Fountaine sale in 1884.
- Bibliography
- Mark Westgarth, ‘A biographical dictionary of XIXc antique and curiosity dealers’, 2009, pp.187-8.
