The coat-of-arms found on the present lot are those of Wilson for Bessie Hilles, née Bessie Beale Wilson, whose father William Thomas Wilson (1850 - 1901) owned an eponymous clipper ship company in Baltimore, Maryland in the 19th century.

The present lot was purchased by Bessie Wilson Hilles and her husband William Sadler Hilles for their home at Villa Clémentine in Cannes, France, which they purchased in 1916. The home was originally built by British architect Edward Hewetsonach in 1882 for Captain Philippe Green, who named the villa for his wife Clementine Augusta Spencer-Churchill (1848 - 1886), Marchioness of Camden. Upon the outbreak of World War II, Bessie Hilles, who had lost her husband in 1931, lent the estate to Le Rayon de Soleil, an association for orphans which secretly took in Jewish refugees. The property was purchased by the city of Cannes in 1950, and operates today as Les Coteaux Vocational High School.

Comparative Image: Villa Clementine, Cannes, France, early 20th Century.