AUTUMN | WINTER 2024 AUCTION SEASON
ONLINE AUCTION 10th - 20th October 2024
THREE BRITISH SISTERS AND THEIR IMPERIAL RUSSIAN TREASURES
European Works of Art, Objects and Silver | Jewellery and Watches
BOTH AUCTIONS on 21st October. 11am and 3pm respectively
London, UK: Treasures of Imperial Russia belonging to three British sisters who grew up around the Romanov court, fled to Britain at the Revolution, and settled down to run a boarding house near Blackpool, are coming up for sale at Olympia Auctions on 21st November, 2024.
May, Ida and Daisy Dickinson were three of six children born into an English family living in St Petersburg. Their father, whose family had been connected with Russia for three generations, ran the Phoenix Ironworks in the Viborg quarter. Until 1905 they lived at some ease but the unrest and economic crisis of the early 1900s resulted in the complete failure of his investments and the family was forced to depart for their mother's home in Lancashire.
Pining for the country they considered home, the sisters had all returned to Russia by 1911, their aunt finding them work as governesses. When forced to flee again to avoid the turbulence of the Revolution, they packed trunks and returned to Britain for good. Two of the sisters spent the rest of their lives running a boarding house, which they adorned with Russian ornaments, in the family holiday town of Cleveleys near Blackpool.