Jeffrey Lassaline has joined Tennants Auctioneers as Silver and Objects of Vertu Specialist and will carry out professional valuations for insurance and probate as well as cataloguing items of Silver across the busy sale program.
Jeffrey brings to Tennants over 25 years’ experience working with the Fine and Decorative Arts. Having begun his career working in a museum in Canada, Jeffrey moved to London in 2000 to take up the post of Head of the Silver Department at Christie’s South Kensington. In 2005 Jeffrey moved to Christie’s King Street to become Senior Silver Specialist and Director. During nearly 20 years working at Christie’s, most recently as Consultant Senior Specialist, Jeffrey was involved in many landmark sales, such as the Peggy and David Rockefeller Sale in 2018, the Harewood: Collecting in the Royal Tradition Sale in 2013, the sale of Works of Art from Cowdray Park in 2011, the Althorp Attic Sale in 2010 and the David and Vivian Campbell Collection of Omar Ramsden in 2005. In addition, he has handled the sale of numerous important items such as the Fabergé Rothschild Egg, which sold for almost £8.9m in 2007, the Hanover Royal Chandelier, which sold for £5.7m in 2011, the Cremorne Candelabra which sold in 2015 for over £900,000 and the Richards Mazer Bowl by Omar Ramsden which sold for over £100,000, at the time a world record for a piece of silver by Ramsden at auction.
With a passion to ensure that silver stays relevant in the future Jeffrey has also taken a keen interest in the goldsmiths and silversmiths working today. He has sought to support the industry both academically and commercially, for example Jeffrey worked until 2017 as Curator and Secretary to the Trustees of the Silver Trust, who have built a collection of contemporary British silver which is on loan to 10 Downing Street and he arranged a selling exhibition at Christie’s and oversaw the sale of a candelabrum centrepiece made for the Duke of Westminster in 2007 which sold for over £45,000, a record price for Devlin at auction at the time. He has also been a judge and curator for various exhibitions of contemporary silver.
Jeffrey is a Freeman of both the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths and the City of London, a member of the Silver Society, an Honorary member of Contemporary British Silversmiths and a founding member of the Silver Society of Canada.
Director Jane Tennant said of the appointment ‘We are delighted Jeffrey has joined us at Tennants, bringing with him a wealth of experience and knowledge, and a passion for his subject’.
