Good French Louis XVI green painted side table, the rectangular white marble top supported on a green painted base with carved frieze with central urn mount, on square tapered and fluted legs

The Weeks Collection  

The plan was to spend a quiet May Bank Holiday weekend in Suffolk.  Annie drove ahead with our boys aged 1 and 2, I was to follow on the train after work on Friday.  Thumbing through the latest Country Life I found a house in Suffolk not far from where we were staying - I arranged a viewing for Saturday afternoon.

We drove to Abbotts in Wickham Market to pick up a copy of the sales brochure.  It's a short distance from there to Monewden through treed lanes and completely unspoilt landscape dotted with farms and cottages.  When we arrived, the owner, Major George Baird, was scything a patch of grass. He was in his eighties, short and thin and wearing immaculately pressed tweed trousers, secured by a belt well above the waist, and a beat-up straw hat. As we climbed the front stairs Annie turned to me and said "If we're really going to buy a house, this is the one!" She had completely fallen for the old style charm and beautiful manners of Major Baird!

Buying was a short drama. Annie phoned the agent on Monday morning to be told that our offer would have to be a sealed bid and with Abbotts by noon on Tuesday. By late afternoon on Tuesday we owned a house in Suffolk and now had to negotiate a way of paying for it. We moved in the following August having done major renovations, and we never looked back.

Now came the real fun. I'm an avid collector (and hoarder), Annie isn't! Long before we found Moat House I was already in the habit of 'Guggenheiming', a name given to my addiction by a savvy friend. Filling our new house was a challenge beyond my wildest dreams. By and large Annie and I share the same taste, though a few victims did have to be returned when I'd really overstepped the mark. By the time we put the house on the market almost 40 years later it was bursting at the seams.

We do hope that you will find something here that you simply can't resist.

Wilf & Annie Weeks

The Weeks Collection

I first met Wilf and Annie Weeks in the autumn of 2017, when I was acting as auctioneer at a Gainsborough’s House charity auction held to raise funds for the magnificent new project we see today. Wilf, a trustee of Gainsborough’s House, was clearly keen to support the cause and purchased a little oil by Patrick George (lot 1564). Little did I know that I would be selling this very picture again eight years later.

What followed were visits to Moat House and to their London home over the following year, culminating in the sale of a number of works in 2019. Every visit to either home was an occasion of discovery and delightful anecdotes of provenance, and stories of Wilf’s travels in pursuit of new acquisitions.

I came to know Wilf far better in 2019 during a visit to Moscow with a group of Patrons from Gainsborough’s House. Although we were accompanied by an excellent guide, Wilf’s own enthusiasm and depth of knowledge in architecture, art history, and culture seemed inexhaustible.

In the years that followed, I made regular visits to Moat House, nestled within a small Suffolk village. Each visit was a joy, the surroundings not only of a garden worthy of Chelsea but of a beautifully furnished country house that so evidently brought great joy to its owners. When the decision was taken to move permanently to London, the process of cataloguing began, along with those inevitable and sometimes difficult decisions of what to part with. When I suggested staying for a few days to ease the travel, Annie replied, what fun, and indeed it was. What followed was a wonderfully convivial week of eating and drinking too much and being surrounded by this wonderfully varied collection with the greatest of hosts, in their natural habitat. 

It is a pleasure to be presenting The Weeks Collection, and I am confident that it will offer something to delight and inspire collectors of every kind.

Jonathan Benson

Director