A lifelong aesthete, traveller, gardener, and philanthropist, he lived in Letchworth, Hertfordshire.
Sir Donald, as he preferred to be known, travelled extensively in Africa, the Middle East, and south-east Asia and many furnishings in his home reflected this wanderlust.
Meticulous cataloguing
However, it was pottery from Classical Greece that held a particular fascination, and he revelled in meticulously cataloguing his collection, recording the time and place of each purchase and the whereabouts of similar examples. His extensive holdings were sold in a total of 23 lots with every piece getting away for a total close to £60,000 (including buyer’s premium) at the March 19-20 sale.
Leading the dispersal was a series of Attic red and black figure lekythoi (painted oil storage vessels) from the 5th century BC. Although often found in funerary settings, they are decorated with a wide range of images, both from daily life and mythology.
The 8in (20cm) black-figure lekythos painted with a chariot scene in the manner of the artist known as the Haimon painter sold at £3800 while a similar vessel decorated with Athena by the workshop of ‘the Class of Athens 581’ took £3000.
Both had been bought at London auctions in the 1980s: at Christie’s in May 1989 and at Phillips in December 1985.
Another key vessel from this period of Greek pottery is the wine jug or oinochoe.
Sir Donald owned several examples made in 4th century BC Apulia including a 9in (22cm) red-figure trefoil jug attributed to the painter of the Macinagrossa Stand c.325-300BC and a larger 12in (30cm) oinochoe painted with a female head wearing a patterned kekryphalos to her hair.
With provenances to leading dealers (Agora Ancient Art, Vienna in July 1986 and BA Seaby, London in August 1993), they sold at £1700 and £1900 respectively.
Also from the Magna Greece territories in southern Italy was a 7in (17cm) terracotta roofing antefix depicting the horned head of the goat god Pan.
Probably from the roof frieze of a grand 4th century BC building in Taras (modern-day Taranto), it had been acquired in November 1996 from the London dealership Charles Ede. It hammered at £950.