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| May 05, 2024 |
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General News: Village Resident To Auction the Magna Carta
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| David Redden |
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| David Redden at the Nature Museum |
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| George Washington's Order of Cincinnati Medal |
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| The Magna Carta to be auctioned |
September 26, 2007
There are few people in Cornwall-on-Hudson who have had as many brushes with history as David Redden, vice chairman of Sotheby’s auction house in New York City. On Tuesday, Redden announced that he would be putting a rare copy of the Magna Carta on the auction block later this year.
The Magna Carta was first written in 1215 as a means of forcing the English King John to relinquish some of his absolute power. It laid the foundation of modern democracy and established the principle of habeaus corpus that protects citizens from unjust detention. The document was edited several times under subsequent monarchies until it was adopted as part of the English legal code in 1297. The document to be auctioned at Sotheby’s dates to this era, one of 17 copies in existence and the only one in private hands.
Mr. Redden, who lives in the village when he is not pursuing high-stakes auction items or wielding the auction gavel, told reporters on Tuesday that the Magna Carta is “the most important document on earth.”
He told Cornwall-on-Hudson.com that news of the auction of the Magna Carta, which is expected to fetch $10-20 million, immediately aroused interest from potential bidders. Mr. Redden said that he was able to negotiate the auction sale of the document because of his long relationship with the (H.Ross) Perot Foundation in Texas, which bought the Magna Carta 23 years ago.
“I have dealt with Mr. Perot for many years,” Redden said, “and I am intimately familiar with that document.” The document had been on display at the National Archives in Washington, D.C. until it was shipped to New York for the auction this month.
David Redden is as passionate about the Magna Carta as he is about another item he will auction later this year, a medal created for George Washington immediately following the American Revolution. The Order of Cincinnati badge features a gold eagle and Redden said it was meant to perpetuate the ideals of the Revolution for a group of officers, some of whom gathered at the New Windsor cantonment at the end of the war.
“It was presented to the Marquis de Lafayette by Washington’s family,” Redden said, “and his great-great-granddaughter consigned it to me.”
Redden, who has also sold original copies of the Declaration of Independence, sees the relevance of this medal to the Hudson Valley, a place where Washington lived and worked at the end of the American Revolution. As he talks, he speaks less of fine art and historic documents and more of the beauty of his home.
“The Hudson Valley is glorious and it needs to be cherished in every way possible, “ said Redden, “whether it is to teach children about nature, or to enjoy Black Rock, we have a tremendous resource in our backyard.”
Redden has been deeply involved in environmental issues in the area. He is currently the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Nature Museum of the Hudson Highlands and he once served as chairman of Scenic Hudson, the environmental preservation group. One may even find him at occasional village meetings, expressing his views about local issues and never letting on for a moment that in his day job he has brushes with history that others can only dream about.
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