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FINDERS KEEPERS | MASTERS & MUSES | CABANA MAGAZINE
Fourth generation British antiquarian Will Green, a specialist at his family's Northamptonshire antiques business, Ron Green Antiques, shares with Cabana the stories of two extraordinary objects: his greatest find and the piece he’ll keep forever.
INTERVIEW BY CAMILLA FRANCES | MASTERS & MUSES | 12 JULY 2024
My greatest find: A George II gilt gesso side table
"I stumbled across this table in a sleepy auction in the south of England a few years ago. As soon as I saw it, I knew I had to have it. It was simply the most beautiful period table I had ever seen. It was fairly small with perfectly patinated, time-softened skin.
"The interlacing ‘strap-work’ and acanthus carving on the gesso top was obviously executed by an incredibly fine hand and retained its sharpness despite 300 years of use. It’s a table I wish I'd kept, but the joy of owning such an elegant and original piece is enough for me."
The piece I’ll keep forever: An oak bench from New College, Oxford
"Last year I was lucky enough to buy six of the benches from The Dining Hall at New College, Oxford. If I had the room to house six 12ft benches at home, I certainly would have, but unfortunately I don’t. I do, however, have room for one. So I kept the best and sold the other five to some dealers in London (one of whom I know has also kept one for himself, and we’ve jointly made a pact never to sell).
"It’s an incredibly strong thing - the top is a single plank of 2” oak, which was probably felled from college grounds and almost certainly supplied during the refurbishment of the college by George Gilbert Scott - the renowned 19th century architect - around 1870. It sits in our entrance hall but I’m tempted, when our verandah is built, to move it under there in a position that catches the sun every morning. Perhaps it’ll turn that wonderful silvery-grey that oak does when left outside for many years."
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Cabana Magazine N24
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This issue will transport you across countries and continents where craft and culture converge. Evocative travel portfolios reveal Japan's elegant restraint, Peru's sacred churches ablaze with color, and striking architecture in a fading Addis Ababa. Inspiring minds from the late Giorgio Armani to Nikolai von Bismarck spark curiosity, while exclusive homes—from the dazzling Burghley House in England and an Anglo-Italian dream in Milan, to a Dionysian retreat in Patmos and a historic Pennsylvania farmhouse—become portals that recall, evoke and transport.
