Nature lover offers up his antiques at auction

The collection of porcelain, silver and other fine objects belonging to nature lover and antique dealer the late Laszlo Erdos will be auctioned from 4pm Thursday April 10 by Leonard Joel at 333 Malvern Road, South Yarra.

Born in Hungary, as a young man Laszlo built a reputation as a man of birds with the Ornithological Institute of Hungary and in 1947 discovered a new species – the first in his country for 60 years.

At the same time, in a country full of Roman antiquities he became interested in antiques after finding ancient pieces of porcelain half buried during his sojourns to the woods to observe his beloved birds.

Ironically, his first discovery was a pot with a picture of a bird in relief imprinted on the surface.

Laszlo migrated to Australia in 1950 as a political refugee ending up at the infamous Bonegilla camp.

On his arrival in Port Melbourne, he was fascinated by seagulls – writing in a letter back home that he had come to Paradise.

After leaving Bonegilla, he returned to Melbourne where he worked in a Richmond brick factory before restoring old cars and eventually moving into antiques.

In 1970, he opened a shop in Sassafras on the edge of Sherbrooke Forest, which enabled him to pursue both his passions at the same time.

In the late 1970s, he and wife Jenny began fulfilling a long-held ambition to make nature films of Australian songbirds – driving all over the country in their four-wheel drive vehicle, and sometimes waiting days to capture something on film.

With the series entitled “Songbirds in the Wild”, the first film was called “Feathered Nomads” and was shot mostly northwest of Broken Hill – featuring studies of wrens, chats, honeyeaters, parrots and crested bellbirds.

The second “Kingdom of the Lyrebird” was made in Sherbrooke Forest and along the Great Dividing Range, showing the life of the creature, its mating and fabulous dance and the small birds with which it associated.

The auction contains a range of antiques including English and continental porcelain and pottery, bronze figures, scent bottles, 19^th century pocket watches, and Victorian papier mache boxes.