£80k royal fruit bowl at centre of High Court row

A valuable Wedgwood bowl, part of a dinner service specially commissioned by Queen Victoria, is at the centre of a High Court row.

The fruit bowl, valued at at least £80,000 (€113,000), was used exclusively by the British royal family at Balmoral, and later by the family of the Duke of Devonshire, before it came to the Midlands home of an Irish family, the court heard.

Recently discovered correspondence suggests that the bowl, purchased in England in the post-war years by the late Mary Elsie Carroll, had been sold back by the deceased’s son Michael to the family of the Duke of Devonshire, for £100,000, the court heard.