Gorer v Lever - National Museums Liverpool

Ezekiel Edgar, but seems to have inverted the order certainly by the time heentered business and the original name of the firm S. Gorer & Son, soon becamesimply Gorer as the business became more successful. Again, although Edgarwas married at Hampstead Synagogue in 1902, there is no evidence that he waspracticing. His wife, Rachel Alice Cohen, known as Rée, had trained at the SladeSchool of Art as a sculptor and was a close friend of, and correspondent with, thewriter and poet Edith Sitwell (1887­1964), as were her sons, Geoffrey, Peter andRichard. 75 This long­standing relationship with Edith Sitwell provides a goodexample of how well the Gorer’s had assimilated into upper­class English life, asdoes the education of their sons, two of whom attended Charterhouse, the third,Westminster and all of whom went on to Cambridge and distinguished careers. 76In business Gorer’s emulation of Duveen can be seen in the way in which heattempted to manipulate the market – in his case for Chinese works of art andporcelain in particular. His promotion of the Bennett Collection is a case in point,but he attempted to replicate the effect with other collections, notably that ofGeorge R. Davies (Fig.9), which he acquired in 1913 and which wasaccompanied by a lavishly illustrated catalogue and the Henry Sampsoncollection, consisting of 943 pieces of predominantly Qing porcelain and75See Victoria Glendinning, Edith Sitwell: A Unicorn Among Lions, Oxford, 1981.76Geoffrey Gorer (1905­85) was a writer and social anthropologist, Peter (1907­61), animmunologist and Richard (1913­94), a horticulturalist.26