Country Life

The stuff of legends

THE cover of the Sworders auction catalogue for ‘Dick Turpin: The Legend Lives On’ was an artwork in itself. Meg Wileman, head of photography at the auction house at Stansted Mountfitchet, Essex, brilliantly portrayed the late antiques dealer in two lines (Fig 1). The minimalist master Fougasse could hardly have done it better.

Turpin, whose given name was Maurice, was born in 1928 and died in 2005. Following the death of Jackie Mann, the companion of his later years, Sworders held the first of two final sales of contents from their London home last month; remaining jewellery and objects of art will

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