129897_auctions-imperial-2018-arms-and-armor-november/
Lot 301:
Description
Consisting of the palaska bullet box of George Gordon, Sixth Lord Byron, from the Samuel Gridley Howe Collection, and a presented copy of AN HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE GREEK REVOLUTION by Samuel Gridley Howe, M.D., 1828. The palaska of bronze, modeled with a Greek Revolutionary armatolos figure with eagles and lions amongst baroque motifs in relief on the obverse, with hinged lid and belt loop to the reverse and bearing a paper label inscribed: LORD BYRON’S BULLET POUCH / DR. S.G. HOWE COLL. / PRESENTED BY LAURA E. RICHARDS. The book bound in full calf with gold-stamped spine, inscribed HENRY HOWE RICHARDS, FROM L.E.R. 1904, with an enclosed, typed card referring to the author, Samuel Gridley Howe, M.D., and LENT BY H.H. RICHARDS, with the handwritten note, PRESENTED TO MICHAEL ANAGNOS BY JULIA HOWE ANAGNOS- 1906 on the reverse. Early 19th c. Palaska shows deep patina, book well worn. Palaska height 12cm. George Gordon Byron, Sixth Lord Byron, was England’s greatest Romantic Era poet. He led an adventurous, often dangerous, existence and at age 35 journeyed to Greece to join the revolution and fight the Ottomans. Given command over a brigade of Suliots, he was preparing an attack on the Ottoman stronghold of Lepanto, but died in Missolonghi on April 19, 1824. Byron’s passing was mourned throughout the world. He became a national hero to the Greeks and his renown as a poet grew in England, Europe and America. Samuel Gridley Howe M.D. (1801-1876,) noted American abolitionist, was so inspired by Lord Byron’s cause, that he sailed for Greece in 1824 with the intention of fighting by Byron’s side. Howe arrived just weeks after Byron succumbed to fever, nonetheless fighting for six years against the Ottomans at Missolonghi, Crete and other locations, and assisting Byron’s close friend and protégé, Alexandros Mavrokordatos, among other Greek notables. Howe acquired Byron’s helmet, sword and a number of other military effects before returning to the U.S. in 1830; the helmet was repatriated to Greece in 1926, donated to the Ethnographic Museum, Athens (now the National Historical Museum) by Howe’s daughter, Maud Howe Elliot, which memorialized her father’s service to Greece as well. Howe’s eldest daughter, Laura Elizabeth Richards, celebrated American author, presented the palaska to the husband of her sister, Julia Romana Anagnos, a Greek colleague and later son-in-law of Samuel Gridley Howe, Michael Anagnos, between 1876 (the year of Samuel G. Howe’s death) and 1906, the year of Anagnos’ death (his name was shortened from Anognostopoulos. Howe had met him in Greece in 1867 and recruited him to teach Greek and Latin at the Perkins Institute for the Blind. Howe’s daughter Julia married Anagnos in 1870.) The second item in this lot, Samuel G. Howe’s book, AN HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE GREEK REVOLUTION is inscribed from Laura E. Richards to her son, Henry Howe Richards, and dated 1904. Rather than Julia Anagnos, it was likely presented to Henry Richards, Anagnos’ nephew by marriage, between 1904 and 1906, the year of his death. The image of a portrait of Samuel Gridley Howe as a Greek freedom fighter, painted by John Elliot c. 1830, now housed at Brown University, is shown for reference only and is not included with this lot. Condition III
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