WIDN blog

This was his UK base until his death last year at the age of 69. Wunderman also owned a French Chateau in the Cote d`Azur and a penthouse in Los Angeles.

Charlie Thomas Head of Furniture at Bonhams Knightsbridge who has catalogued the Wunderman home said he had never seen anything quite like it. “There is evidence everywhere of Severin’s collecting passions and the breadth of his taste. It has been a privilege to work in this home as it will be to sell its many beautiful and extraordinary objects and furnishings,” he said.

Furniture and fittings from the 600 lot Bonhams sale will be used to recreate a selection of the rooms in this unique home. Visitors to Bonhams New Bond Street will be free to walk through the settings that once housed a most enigmatic man who built up two of the world’s greatest time-keeping businesses, watches worn by powerful and wealthy men round the world.

Severin Wunderman was the last patron of French surrealist Jean Cocteau and something of this theatricality is also evident in this outwardly seeming classic English Chelsea home.

Forty years of collecting with an eye for decorative effect is evident in this house which boasts stunning chandeliers, extraordinary staircases and no fewer than 150 walking canes, groups of Napoleon images, timepieces, and dozens of glass finials amongst an Aladdin’s cave of treasures.

The Bonhams auction will be used to fund the Severin Wunderman Foundation, based in the USA.