Abraham Langford

As a young man he wrote for the stage, and was responsible, according to the Biographia Dramatica, for an 'entertainment' called 'The Judgement of Paris,' which was produced in 1730.

By 1747 Langford was in partnership with Christopher 'Auctioneer' Cock (d. 1748),[1] and in 1748 succeeded him at the auction-rooms in the north-eastern corner of the Piazza, Covent Garden.

[2] These rooms formed part of the house where Sir Dudley North died in 1691, and were later the site of the Tavistock Hotel.

The extent of Langford’s auctioneering business can be judged from the list of sales he organised in the month of April 1760 alone:      Mr Arthur Pond (Prints by Rembrandt)     William Draper, Esq.

All of this followed a two-day auction the previous month of more than 120 paintings by eminent artists, bronzes, busts, etc., acquired by the art dealer John Blackwood.