Post by Ricky Pound

After some research it is great to finally have a photograph of the lady who once owned this porcelain that I now own. Here she is in a wedding photograph-marriage of Josef von Colloredo-Mannsfeld and Lucy Sophie Yvonne Graham Jonquet. And what a story she has! Lucy Sophie Yvonne de Jonquet, born in 1878, in Peckham. She got married twice. In 1895 Lucy married a wealthy industrialist, John Graham. Unfortunately, he died suddenly and at the age of 20. Lucy appears to be a widow living off her husband’s income. Between 1900 and 1905 little information remains on Lucy's fate before her marriage in Paris to a Josef Hieronyme Rudolf Ferdinand Franz Maria, the Prince Colloredo-Mannsfeld, a hereditary prince of Austro-Hungarian origin. This marriage was dissolved by divorce in 1925 as there were questions regarding Lucy’s family history. Apparently only women of noble birth could marry into the Colloredo-Mannsfield family and her lineage was not distinguished enough to allow her to be presented at court. After the princess moved back to England after her second marriage was annulled she was associated with Walter Roland Cartwright, a soldier who managed to gamble away all his money. Both were viewed with suspicion by the British police and regular reports were made on their whereabouts. It is known that she later moved to Italy, and that she died on 11 April 1940 in Rome. Possibly via her annulled marriage Lucy acquired this collection of porcelain which was stored at the Chenue depositary prior to the Second World War. On the 6th February 1942 the Nazi Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg corps visited the warehouses and the collection of porcelain was moved to the Jeu de Paume Museum for documentation before being sent to Seisenegg Castle in Austria. After the war it was removed from there and in 1948 was laid in the storerooms of the Sevres Museum in Paris before finally being traced to the heirs of Lucy’s estate and released on the 13th February 2020. It is possible that the ceramics were seized by the Nazis as the Colloredo-Mansfeld family were declared "enemies of the Reich" in 1942 which led to a Europe-wide confiscation of the family's assets stretching from France to Czechoslovakia.