A Pair of George II Black and Gold Lacquer Cabinets

Said to come from the collection of Barbara Hutton (1912-1979), Sidi Hosni Palace, Tangier, Morocco

According to the catalogue note of the dealer from the whom these cabinets were acquired by the father of the present owner, this pair was previously in the collection of Barbara Hutton at her palace Sidi Hosni in the casbah of Tangier in northern Morocco. Born in New York, Barbara Hutton (1912-1979) was heir to the Woolworth fortune and from a young age one of the wealthiest women in the world. Almost an exact contemporary of her fellow heiress Doris Duke, Hutton also led a peripatetic international lifestyle maintaining residences in New York, Los Angeles, London, Paris and Mexico and was a noted collector, philanthropist and socialite. Dubbed 'the poor little rich girl', she also endured a complicated private life, married and divorced seven times and plagued by substance addictions.

Following the divorce in 1945 from her third husband, the actor Cary Grant, Hutton acquired Sidi Hosni palace, a residence of seven conjoined houses in the centre of Tangier, and this quicky became her preferred retreat, where she regularly entertained for the visiting gliteratti of the Postwar era and contributed to the aura of Tangier as a rakish playground for the wealthy, reputedly persuading the municipal authorities to widen the historic gate at the entrance of the old town to allow access for her Rolls Royce. Hutton filled the house with artworks and antiques acquired in Paris and London, and these were dispersed in the months immediately following her death in 1979.