A seat cushion from one of the Titanic’s lifeboats is set to be auctioned in London on 18 April with a starting bid of £180,000 (about €200,000).
The canvas cushion was retrieved from one of the 13 lifeboats used by survivors to reach the rescue ship SS Carpathia. Henry Aldridge & Son, the British auction house handling the sale, noted it is visible in a historical photograph of Titanic’s lifeboat number 2.
London tea and coffee importer Richard William Smith, who died when the Titanic sank after hitting an iceberg on 14 April 1912, had been travelling to New York to meet his friend TG Matthews, also a tea importer. Smith’s body was never identified, and the tragic loss reportedly moved Matthews so deeply that he purchased the cushion during its first sale by the steamship supply company Meyer-Forest. Matthews kept the cushion in his office.
The cushion was passed down to Matthews’ grandson in 1926, then later owned by two other individuals before the family sold it in 1987. Its current owner has chosen to remain anonymous.
