‘Pebble’ owners, London auctioneer over the moon
View(s):With British auction house Bonhams insisting that the controversial Sri Lankan moonstone that fetched a tidy sum is one of the seven rare moonstones of the late Anuradhapura Period, Sri Lankan authorities say it is a replica. Kumudini Hettiarachchi reports
It was a phone call that clinched the deal, with an intricately-carved moonstone (Sandakada Pahana) of Sri Lankan origin going into the possession of the bidder of £553,250, a whopping Rs. 108 million on Tuesday (April 23). The moonstone, earlier estimated to bring in between £20,000 and 30,000, went beyond all expectations and fetched the highest bid from all the objects auctioned under the ‘Islamic and Indian Art’ category by the British auction house, Bonhams.
While Bonhams is insistent that the “rare” moonstone is one of seven of the Late Anuradhapura Period, Sri Lanka’s Department of Archaeology issued a verdict in March that it is a replica of the original moonstones of that period. “Thrilled,” is how the Devon-based owners, Mike and Bronwyn Hickmott, had responded after the sale, according to a press release which left the identity of the buyer, whether person or institution, a mystery.
“We are overwhelmed with the price achieved. It goes beyond all our expectations,” they had said, with Mrs. Hickmott adding that they had been turned away by other international auction houses as well as television antiques shows. “Everyone pooh-poohed our belief that the stone was special.”
Bonhams stated that there was a battle between buyers in the room and on the telephone for “this remarkable find”, with no fewer than eight telephone bidders and three in the sale-room. A Sri Lankan who watched the moonstone going under the gavel live on the internet said the auction took place at around 6 p.m. local time on Tuesday. The moonstone was bought by a telephone bidder, he said.
Earlier two rare Iznik bottles from the golden age of the Ottoman Empire, once owned by a Bank of England Deputy Governor fetched a total of £748,500 – with one making £447,250 a new world record for an Iznik bottle and the other £301,250, Bonhams said, adding that the sale made a total of £3.6m.
As soon as Bonhams announced the potential sale of the “genuine” moonstone fondly called the ‘Pebble’ by the family which owned it , there were urgent pleas by Sri Lankan archaeologists to the government to either request its return with “goodwill being used as an instrument” or buy it back.
With the moonstone issue stirring up controversy in Sri Lanka, an archaeologist commissioned by Sri Lanka’s Department of Archaeology to ascertain whether the moonstone is an original, came out with the view that it was a replica. The Director-General of Archaeology, Dr. Senarath Dissanayake, then announcing that Sri Lanka would not ask for its return, said that as it is not clear in which time-frame the replica itself was made, rock samples would be sent to the University of Peradeniya for analysis.
The Sunday Times which followed the saga of the moonstone gave extensive coverage on January 27 (headlined ‘Moonstone to be brought home?’ & ‘Heritage under the gavel’) followed by an in-depth report on March 3 on the findings of the Sri Lankan doctoral student, Wijerathne Bohingamuwa of the School of Archaeology, University of Oxford commissioned by the department, that the moonstone was a replica (‘Moonstone saga unearths uncovered ground’).
Giving more details about the history of the “massively heavy” three-quarters of a ton stone measuring 8ftX4ft and six inches thick moonstone, Bonhams states that the temple stone had been found at ‘Brackenhill’, an early 20th Century Tudor Revival house in Crowborough, East Sussex. From 1935, Brackenhill was the home of William Murdoch Thyne (1878-1949), a Scottish civil engineer working in Ceylon between 1915 and 1937, and later in Jamaica.
Thyne was responsible for the design and execution of many large reservoir projects including the raising of the Labugama Dam in Sri Lanka and the filtration works for Colombo. He was a Vice-President of the Ceylon Engineering Association and is recorded as having used elephants for the lifting of heavy masonry at Labugama. Thyne and his wife, Lilian, returned to Brackenhill in 1937 prior to departure for Jamaica where he was appointed chief engineer and member of the water commission at Kingston, it states.
Thyne continued living at Brackenhill after his wife’s death in 1949 and died in Crowborough in 1952, whence the house and temple stone passed into the possession of the current vendor’s (Mrs. Hickmott’s) family, according to the press release. (When Mrs. Hickmott’s family moved they took the moonstone first to Bristol and finally to Devon.)
The Thynes’ connection with Ceylon continued through the marriage of their son William Lindsay Thyne to Dawn Ames at Kandy, Ceylon in 1948. She was the daughter of a tea planter, Alfred Eric Ames (1890-1948), and Mrs Ames of Wewelmadde (an estate in central Sri Lanka), Kaikawala. Mrs. Dawn Thyne was possibly the granddaughter of Alfred Ames (born 1853) whose career as a planter may have extended back to the earliest days of tea production in Ceylon and prior to the first archaeological survey of the island by H.C.P. Bell (1851-1937), it added.
Bonhams says it’s the real stuff, mum on the buyer
Bonhams declined to disclose the identity of the buyer of the moonstone or where the buyer was based, when asked by the Sunday Times in an e-mail. “I’m afraid that I cannot say anything about the buyer,” said Bonhams’ Director of Press & Marketing, Julian Roup, while Head of Indian and Islamic Art, Alice Bailey, added, “We cannot disclose the origin of the buyer due to client confidentiality”.
With Bonhams repeatedly stating that the moonstone is one of only seven from the Anuradhapura Period which would mean that it is an original, the Sunday Times sought clarification from Ms. Bailey who is said to have “led the research to establish the provenance of the moonstone”.
She said: “There are many examples of moonstones known in Sri Lanka but of those dating to the Anuradhapura period there are relatively few which are decorated, most are plain. The moonstone was bidded on by a number of collectors and institutions. The high price achieved reflects the bidders’ confidence in its authenticity.”
Meanwhile, the Bonhams press release substantiated her stand by stating that the carving on every sandakada pahana during the Late Anuradhapura Period is uniform.
“Our moonstone compares favourably in decoration, and in breadth and width with moonstones nos. 8-11 listed in C.E Godakumbura’s work (Moonstones, Archaeological Department, Ceylon, 1967, pp. 35-37) attributed to the Anuradhapura period,” it states.
Bonhams adds: “The history of the city of Anuradhapura offers an insight as to how this monumental piece may have come out of Sri Lanka. During the 1920s and 1930s when William Murdoch Thyne was working in Ceylon, the political infrastructure of colonial Ceylon began to break down. Macro-level planning at Anuradhapura commenced in 1942 with the establishment of the Anuradhapura Preservation Board. According to this research, money was granted by the Parliament to invite a town planner from England to plan out the Sacred City. In 1949 the construction work on the new town of Anuradhapura commenced, where the population was relocated from the Sacred City.
“New areas of Anuradhapura were cleared and more ruins uncovered. In his chapter on Anuradhapura in a monograph on Ceylon written in 1950, local inhabitant Harry Williams writes: ‘Despite the wealth of ruins disclosed, cleaned and restored by the devoted labours of the archaeological department, the surrounding jungle for miles in all directions teems with the undisclosed secrets… it is possible to wander many miles in any direction and stumble upon fallen monoliths, broken masonry, soil still red from brickdust and granite slabs half buried in soil…’ (H. Williams, Ceylon Pearl of the East, London, 1950, p. 141).”
However, when the study report commissioned by Sri Lanka’s Department of Archaeology on the Bonhams’ moonstone was issued in March, Dr. Michael Wills of the Asia Dept, British Museum had said, “I’ve been asked to look into the moonstone for the museum. I’ve read your (Wijerathne Bohingamuwa’s) report and agree with what you present there.”
Mr. Bohingamuwa’s report which compared and contrasted the Late Anuradhapura Period moonstones with that of the Bonhams’ one said the latter was a replica.
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