He was born at Beckley Park, a fine moated 16th century house near Oxford, one of four children of Basil and Margaret Feilding.
After attending the preparatory school, All Hallows, Jocelyn went to Downside. He was a classics scholar but was inspired towards fine art by Dom Christopher Lyne, the art master who ran the ‘art attic’.
Leaving school, he went to the Courtauld Institute and developed his interest for Italian painting. In 1960 he joined Sotheby’s, where his boss in the Old Masters department was the indomitable Carmen Gronau, herself a noted authority on Italian painting. During the war Mrs Gronau, as a refugee, had cooked for the Feildings at Beckley.
Fifty years ago Sotheby’s was very much smaller than it is today. The directors were all experts in their field and generously shared their expertise with their staff. Here Jocelyn’s impeccable eye was honed.
Bright lights of New Bond Street
Then in 1966 the bright lights of the art trade beckoned, and after six years Jocelyn left to set up as a private dealer in rooms near Sotheby’s in New Bond Street.
He was immensely popular within the trade and became friends with many dealers; Old Masters dealers but in many other disciplines as well.
In 1963 he married Rowena Combe, whom he had met when they were both working at Sotheby’s. They had two daughters. At that time many Sotheby’s romances blossomed into marriage.
Jocelyn loved his shooting, and was a very good shot. He particularly enjoyed his days at Holkham, where they rented a weekend cottage. Divorced in 1983, Jocelyn became a bachelor again.
He bought a narrowboat, which he referred to as his ‘love boat’, and travelled over much of the network of restored canals. He even crossed the treacherous Severn Estuary.
Through his love of music he met Harriet Earle, then working at English National Opera, and they married in 1998. They moved down to Wiltshire where they bought the beautiful Old Manor House in Bradford on Avon, with its fine terraced garden. It was a house that Jocelyn had known since Downside days, when he used to visit old family friends with his father.
Together they had a wide circle of friends.
Latterly Jocelyn had a gun in the Moulton shoot, precariously situated at the edge of the town, just below Alex Moulton’s house where often you had to shoot from a punt in the river.
The last two years, however, brought failing health, and he recently succumbed to Covid-19, but was devotedly nursed by his wife throughout.
William Darby
