Phillip Lucas, Collector

Click here to book tickets ‘I think I have a pronounced hunter-gatherer instinct’ portrait by Lucinda Douglas Menzies When I visited Phillip Lucas in his 1725 house in Spitalfields that he has been renovating for more than a decade, we sat on two threadbare wing chairs, conversing over a sea of objects and piles of books which filled the room. In its profusion, the scene rivalled the opening sequence of Citizen Kane. Imagine my incredulity when Phillip confessed that he had just sent off most of the contents of his house to the sale room, testing my imagination to conceive how it had been before. By profession, Phillip is a barrister but in his soul he is a collector. He bought his house to hold his collection of 1680-1730 furniture which he put in store ten years ago while he repaired the building, only to fill it from floor to ceiling with a whole new collection. I was quite overwhelmed when I considered that as well as the three hundred items Phillip sent for auction, he had enough…