

PROPERTY FROM A UK PRIVATE COLLECTION
Residences in the Adelphi were allocated by lottery, each ticket costing £50. Among the many fashionable tenants was the actor David Garrick, who moved into number 5, one of the central houses, in April 1772. The landscape by Jan Both - lot 160 in this sale - once formed part of Garrick's collection and must have hung in the house depicted here, where Garrick died in 1779 and his widow continued to live for another 43 years.
The construction of the Adelphi is recorded in several paintings by William Marlow, such as the signed work in the Museum of London.1 The Adelphi was demolished in its entirety (except for 7 Adam Street) in 1936, and Colcutt and Hamp's massive Art Deco office block, Adelphi House, erected in 1938, still occupies the site.
1 Inv. no. A25874; see M. Galinou and J. Hayes, London in paint. Oil paintings in the collection at the Museum of London, London 1996, pp. 83–85, cat. no. 27, reproduced in colour pp. 82–83.