Fishing fly box that belonged to Ernest Hemingway

This Wheatley-brand aluminum fly box that belonged to Ernest Hemingway was found by his eldest son, Jack Hemingway, in a trunk stored in the cellars of the Hôtel Ritz, among about 300 brand-new “Chamberet” flies that had been given to Ernest by his close friend, fly fishing specialist and hotelier, Charles Ritz.

After the war, Ernest Hemingway often came to Paris and never failed, once or twice a week, to accept Charles Ritz’s invitations to fish either on the Risle (Madame Vernes’s private stretch) or on the Andelle—France’s two best chalk streams at the time, which rivaled the finest English beats on the Test and the Itchen.

Although “Papa” is best known as a big-game fisherman in Bimini, Key West, and Cuba, he loved trout fly fishing, which he practiced in Idaho, Spain, and France.

Our Paris collector and a fellow angler, Pierre Affre, was a great friend of Jack Hemingway, with whom he fished often in Iceland, Russia (the Ponoi), the United States, and British Columbia. After his father’s death, in 1995, Jack gave Mr. Affre much of his father’s fishing tackle (more than 250 trout flies that belonged to the great American author, as well as some fishing canes and other fishing materials).

In addition to the flies, proof of their historical journey are documented in a letter written to Affre by Jack Hemingway in October of 1995.