A tale of two sales: Sir Rowland Winn and no. 11 St James's Square, London, 1766–1787

This article considers no.11 St James’s Square, London, during the years that the house was owned by Sir Rowland Winn, fifth baronet, and his Swiss wife Sabine. Drawing on sale catalogues of 1766 and 1785, correspondence with the Adam brothers, and bills from Thomas Chippendale, it is suggested that what should have been a key site for the display of fashionable luxury goods was in fact a house largely furnished with second-hand items that may have functioned as generic markers of membership of polite society rather than specific identifiers of the Winns’ tastes. The presence of a number of royal portraits in the house is suggestive of the role that the house may have played in Sir Rowland’s political ambitions, while furniture and fittings identified by an earl’s coronet may have been retained in the hope that he would be elevated to the peerage.