British Lord Gets Right to Auction Roman Silver

A jury ruled Thursday that a British lord--and not Croatia or Hungary--is the rightful owner of a Roman-era silver collection with a value estimated up to $100 million.

The state court jury ruled that neither of the Eastern European governments had rights to the Sevso collection and that it belonged to Lord Spencer Douglas David Compton, the seventh Marquess of Northampton.

“I’m absolutely thrilled. This is super,” Lord Northampton said after the ruling. He also accused Croatia and Hungary of having gone on “a treasure hunt” that cost him millions of dollars to defend.

The silver collection consists of 14 pieces, including ornamental plates, buckets, a basin, a vase and a jewelry casket. Sevso is the name inscribed on one of the plates. Historians think he was a Roman military commander and the silver was commissioned as a gift to him.

The pieces were to have been sold at Sotheby’s auction house in New York in February, 1990, for Lord Northampton. But the auction was blocked by Croatia and Hungary, which alleged in separate claims that the service pieces were dug up in their territories and taken illegally.

Lord Northampton, 47, said he purchased the pieces legally. He began buying them in Switzerland from an agent of a Lebanese owner during the 1980s, spending about $14 million.

He consigned the silver to Sotheby’s, which gave a pre-sale estimated price tag of $70 million. Town & Country magazine said the auction house expected the collection to fetch up to $100 million.

The silver service was shown in New York before the scheduled 1990 auction in what Sotheby’s called “the largest and most valuable collection of such silver ever uncovered.”