Holt: Chandelier discovered at thrift shop sells for £2.9m

One of the world’s most expensive chandeliers is moving across the Atlantic after being sold for a mammoth £2.9m. 

The item has only ever been displayed in public once when it took pride of place in a Norfolk exhibition last year.

Chandelier for Peter Watson at St Andrew's, Holt, July 2022 - Picture: Holt Festival (Image: Holt Festival)

The chandelier housed on the Craxton Estate - Picture: Craxton Estate (Image: Craxton Estate)

Known as Chandelier for Peter Watson, it was created by the Swiss sculptor Alberto Giacometti.

It formed part of a Craxton-Picasso exhibition for Holt Festival 2022 and was visited by more than 5,000 people, when it hung in the town's St Andrew’s church last July.

Its removal to the United States, where it has been brought by a private collector, raises worrying echoes of the classic episode of BBC sitcom Only Fools and Horses where Derek and Rodney Trotter take a job to clean some priceless chandeliers, with disastrous consequences.

The whereabouts of the Norfolk chandelier came to light in the 1960s after it was found in a thrift shop, a chance discovery which could also have come from an episode of Only Fools and Horses. 

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It was spotted by the John Craxton, the British painter, who stumbled upon the long-forgotten chandelier in the window of Denton Antiques in London. 

With his keen eye, he snapped it up for £250, which is around £5,550 in today’s money.

John Craxton - Picture: Newsquest Archive (Image: Newsquest Library)

Adding to this item’s already rich history, it sold this week at Christie’s 20/21 Evening Sale in London at a mammoth price of £2.9million. 

The buyer was bidding by phone.  

The chandelier had been a centerpiece of the music room at Mr Craxton’s private home in Hampstead, London.

Since his death in 2009, the Craxton Estate had embarked on a long road of getting the piece authenticated, after doubt had been cast on it in 2015.

Denton's Lighting Shop where the original find was made - Picture: Supplied (Image: Denton's Lighting Shop)

The research of the chandelier’s provenance and its certification presentation in Paris was completed in 2022 by Norfolk-based James Glennie of Art and Antiques Appraisals.

This year’s Holt Festival, which takes place from July 15-29, will be launching its art program in two weeks' time and its main programme in April. 

The famous chandelier scene in Only Fools and Horses - Picture: BBC Library (Image: BBC)

Only Fools and Horses during filming in Suffolk - Picture: BBC Library (Image: Newsquest)