The petticoat was estimated in the catalogue at £600-800, a price reflecting the valuation given on a recent inventory in Chirk Castle, Clwyd, where it had been kept since it was made. It was originally to have been sold as part of Christie's house contents auction at Chirk Castle on June 21, 2004, but Patricia Frost, head of the textiles department, recognised it as a rare survival from the period and held it over for a specialist auction while keeping its estimate at an alluring level.
Museums from around the world made enquiries about the petticoat and some travelled specifically to see it. But even though she knew it to be a rarity and pre-sale interest alerted her to the likelihood of strong competition, Ms Frost was still staggered by the final price of £31,000.
She only recalls four other examples of hooped petticoats coming onto the open market in the last 15-20 years. The most recent made a little over £4000 in the early to mid-1990s, giving no indication of the price that was to be achieved on this occasion. The battle for the petticoat lasted for few frantic minutes as more than ten institutions and collectors competed with each other in the room and on the telephone, with the hammer falling to an anonymous museum bidding over one of the phones.
There are several reasons why this petticoat is such a rarity. Firstly, items of underwear are not intrinsically valuable, unlike formal outer garments made of expensive silk designed to display the wearer's status that are lovingly kept for generations. Secondly, petticoats like these are hard to store (laid out flat they are the size of a single bed). This offers the owner no obvious reason to keep them, especially as the antiquated mode of formal wide-skirted court dress did not survive neoclassical fashions at the end of the 18th century. It is only in the large country houses that they tend to survive where their biggest threats are a couple of centuries of damp and sunlight, not to mention the onslaught of fancy dress seekers. If they manage to overcome all these obstacles, it is rarer still to find one in absolutely perfect condition as here.
The final factor that made this particular petticoat so desirable was its impeccable provenance. Chirk Castle was, and still is, the seat of the Myddelton family and the petticoat has an inscription, Mifs Midleton, on part of the linen. It is not yet known to which Miss Myddelton this refers, but this may emerge if the new owner undertakes the research it undoubtedly merits.
Vivienne Lawes
