"The Property From The Collection Of Mrs Marietta Peabody Tree And The Late Ronald Tree" 1976 Sotheby Parke Bernet New York (SOLD)

w/ 356 lots

October 8-9, 1976

Sotheby Parke Bernet New York

9 1/4" x 8 3/4"

VG

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Ronald Tree was a former editor of Forum Magazine who had moved to England in the 1930s and set up residence in the magnificent Ditchley Park Manor. A member of Parliament, Tree was also a friend of Churchill, who visited Ditchley Park often during the Second World War. After the war the Trees packed up the “country house” contents of the manor and moved it to New York, where they lived until the contents were sold at this auction. A wonderful auction of “country manor” furnishings and decorations. Churchill smoked and drank in these chairs...

While involved with Huston and married to FitzGerald, Marietta began an affair with Ronald Tree, who was a grandson of retail magnate Marshall Field and MP for Harborough, Leicestershire.

Tree and Peabody divorced their spouses at the end of World War II and married on July 26, 1947. Marietta moved into Tree's home, Ditchley Park, but found herself bored with English country life. Tree and most of his friends were Conservatives, and Democrat Marietta again found herself politically isolated. Their daughter Penelope was born in 1949.

Short of money, Tree sold Ditchley and agreed to return to New York City with Marietta, her daughter Frances Fitzgerald and their own daughter, future '60s fashion model Penelope Tree, and his butler Collins

Ditchley Park is a country house near Charlbury in Oxfordshire, England. The estate was once the site of a Roman villa. Later it became a royal hunting ground, and then the property of Sir Henry Lee of Ditchley. The 2nd Earl of Lichfield built the present house, designed by James Gibbs, in 1722. In 1933, the house was bought by an MP, Ronald Tree, whose wife Nancy Lancaster redecorated it in partnership with Sibyl Colefax. During the Second World War Winston Churchill used the house as a weekend retreat, due to concerns that his official country house, Chequers and his private country home, Chartwell, were vulnerable to enemy attack. After the war, Tree sold the house and estate to the 7th Earl of Wilton, who then sold it in 1953 to Sir David Wills of the Wills tobacco family. Wills established the Ditchley Foundation for the promotion of international relations and subsequently donated the house to the governing trust.

Ditchley is a Grade I listed building. The park is listed Grade II*.