Filing cabinet in Lausanne opens its secrets

Napoleon made a few errors when writing this but it is still a treasure

One of the world's greatest collections of historical letters – kept in a filing cabinet in a Swiss laundry room and almost forgotten – is to be auctioned in London.

The treasure of almost 1,000 documents collected over 30 years by a wealthy Austrian banker living in the western Swiss city of Lausanne, includes letters written by Winston Churchill, Peter the Great, Gandhi and Queen Elizabeth I.

The extensive collection, which is estimated to fetch about £2 million (SFr4.87 million) at Christie’s, was put together over 30 years by the late Albin Schram.

An early love letter from Napoleon to Josephine is one of only three known correspondences addressed by the French emperor to his future wife.

The letter was written one morning after a heated argument, apparently over Josephine’s wealth.

Napoleon’s touching reply admits that he had been angry and declares his love.

Three kisses

“I send you three kisses – one on your heart, one on your mouth and one on your eyes.”

The letter from Napoleon, given to Schram by one of his family in 1973, was the inspiration for his extraordinary collection, Christie’s said. It is expected to fetch up to £50,000.

Schram followed his passion in auction rooms in London, Paris and Germany, usually bidding in person, said Thomas Venning, director of Christie’s books and manuscripts department.

“Schram’s guiding principle was his own insatiable intellectual curiosity, pursued through his voluminous reading.”

Though an inveterate collector, Schram was not interested in conservation or display and when he died in 2005 his family barely knew where the letters were.

Prized lot

One of the most prized lots, with an estimate of up to £120,000, is a letter written by metaphysical poet John Donne to Lady Kingsmill a day after the death of her husband in October 1624.

Urging her not to presume to contest God’s actions, Donne, who was dean of St Paul’s Cathedral in London at the time, adds: “although we would direct Him to do them better.”

Christie’s says the letter is exceptionally rare, with perhaps only one other Donne letter in private hands.

Shram’s interests spanned Russian poets, Argentine authors, French philosophers, English politicians and Italian sculptors.

A letter from Indian leader Gandhi, estimated to sell for up to £12,000, was written 19 days before his assassination in 1948 and pleads for tolerance of Muslims.

Another letter expected to attract interest is a letter written by author Ernest Hemingway to poet and critic Ezra Pound in 1925, explaining why bulls are better than literary critics.

“Bulls don’t run reviews. Bulls of 25 don’t marry old women of 55 and expect to be invited to dinner. Bulls do not get you cited as a co-respondent in Society divorce trials. Bulls don’t borrow money. Bulls are edible after they have been killed.”

The auction takes place on July 3.

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Albin Schram

Schram was born in Prague in 1926 to Austrian parents, both of whom were from established Austrian industrial families.

He studied law at Vienna University and was active in the justice ministry in Vienna and in banks in Germany and Switzerland.

In later life, he devoted himself to private studies in legal history. He began collecting autograph letters in 1973, assembling an exceptional and comprehensive private collection, which was almost unknown to his family.

Auction

Going under the hammer are 570 lots of handwritten manuscripts by many of the most notable figures of European history from the 13th to the 20th centuries.

They include Lord Byron, Winston Churchill, Charles Dickens, Elizabeth I, Sigmund Freud, Gandhi, Napoleon, Isaac Newton, Oliver Cromwell, Claude Monet, Oscar Wilde and Charlotte Brontë.

The auction has five sections: history, literature, art, science and philosophy, and music and theatre.