The Royal Star & Garter Homes provided nursing and dementia care for veterans and their partners at its Richmond home from 1916 until 2014, when the 2.5 acre site was sold for redevelopment.
A poignant entry to the Surrey sale on September 13 was a portrait of a young subaltern, killed at Ypres in April 1915 in the First World War, aged just 21. Lt Eric Elsdale Molson, who was related to the Canadian brewing family, is pictured as a fresh-faced youth in cricket whites in the portrait by Gerald Fenwick Metcalfe (1871-1929).
It was the second portrait of him by the artist, who had depicted Molson and his brother as boys at the turn of the century in an oil painting exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1902. As a boy, Molson lived in Rainsford House, Chelmsford, later to become the site of the war memorial that bore his name.
The signed 2ft 3in (68cm) oil on canvas drew multiple bids online and was knocked down to a buyer in Canada at £3800, nearly four times the top guide.
