Orleans Collection
Encyclopedia
Philippe II, Duke of Orléans
Philippe d'Orléans was a member of the royal family of France and served as Regent of the Kingdom from 1715 to 1723. Born at his father's palace at Saint-Cloud, he was known from birth under the title of Duke of Chartres...
, mostly acquired between about 1700 and his death in 1723. Apart from the great royal-become-national collections of Europe it is arguably the greatest private collection of Western art, especially Italian, ever assembled, and probably the most famous, helped by the fact that most of the collection has been accessible to the public since it was formed, whether in Paris, or subsequently in London, Edinburgh and elsewhere.
The core of the collection was formed by 123 paintings from the collection of Queen Christina of Sweden
Christina of Sweden
Christina , later adopted the name Christina Alexandra, was Queen regnant of Swedes, Goths and Vandals, Grand Princess of Finland, and Duchess of Ingria, Estonia, Livonia and Karelia, from 1633 to 1654. She was the only surviving legitimate child of King Gustav II Adolph and his wife Maria Eleonora...
, which itself had a core assembled from the war booty of the sacks by Swedish troops of Munich in 1632 and Prague in 1648
Battle of Prague (1648)
The Battle of Prague between 25 June and 1 November 1648 was the last action of the Thirty Years' War. General Hans Christoff von Königsmarck, commanding Sweden's flying column, entered the city and captured Prague Castle on the western bank of the Vltava river. The Swedes attempted to enter the...
during the Thirty Years War. After the French Revolution the collection was sold by Louis Philippe d'Orléans, Philippe Égalité
Louis Philippe II, Duke of Orléans
Louis Philippe Joseph d'Orléans commonly known as Philippe, was a member of a cadet branch of the House of Bourbon, the ruling dynasty of France. He actively supported the French Revolution and adopted the name Philippe Égalité, but was nonetheless guillotined during the Reign of Terror...
, and most of it acquired by an aristocratic English consortium led by Francis Egerton, 3rd Duke of Bridgewater
Francis Egerton, 3rd Duke of Bridgewater
Francis Egerton, 3rd Duke of Bridgewater , known as Lord Francis Egerton until 1748, was a British nobleman, the younger son of the 1st Duke...
. Much of the collection has been dispersed, but significant groups remain intact, having passed by inheritance. One such group is the Sutherland Loan or Bridgewater Loan, including sixteen works from the Orleans Collection, in the National Gallery of Scotland
National Gallery of Scotland
The National Gallery of Scotland, in Edinburgh, is the national art gallery of Scotland. An elaborate neoclassical edifice, it stands on The Mound, between the two sections of Edinburgh's Princes Street Gardens...
, and another is at Castle Howard
Castle Howard
Castle Howard is a stately home in North Yorkshire, England, north of York. One of the grandest private residences in Britain, most of it was built between 1699 and 1712 for the 3rd Earl of Carlisle, to a design by Sir John Vanbrugh...
, Yorkshire. There are twenty-five paintings formerly in the collection now in the National Gallery, London
National Gallery, London
The National Gallery is an art museum on Trafalgar Square, London, United Kingdom. Founded in 1824, it houses a collection of over 2,300 paintings dating from the mid-13th century to 1900. The gallery is an exempt charity, and a non-departmental public body of the Department for Culture, Media...
, which have arrived there by a number of different routes.
The collection is of central interest for the history of collecting, and of public access to art. It figured in two of the periods when art collections were most subject to disruption and dispersal: the mid-17th century and the period after the French Revolution.
Rudolf and Christina
The paintings looted from Prague CastlePrague Castle
Prague Castle is a castle in Prague where the Kings of Bohemia, Holy Roman Emperors and presidents of Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic have had their offices. The Czech Crown Jewels are kept here...
had mostly been amassed by the obsessive collector Rudolph II, Holy Roman Emperor (1552–1612), whose own bulk purchases had included the famous collection of Emperor Charles V's leading minister Cardinal Granvelle (1517–86), which he had forced Granvelle's nephew and heir to sell to him. Granvelle had been the "greatest private collector of his time, the friend and patron of Titian
Titian
Tiziano Vecelli or Tiziano Vecellio Tiziano Vecelli or Tiziano Vecellio Tiziano Vecelli or Tiziano Vecellio (c. 1488/1490 – 27 August 1576 better known as Titian was an Italian painter, the most important member of the 16th-century Venetian school. He was born in Pieve di Cadore, near...
and Leoni
Leone Leoni
Leone Leoni was an Italian sculptor of international outlook who travelled in Italy, Germany, Austria, France, the Spanish Netherlands and Spain. Leoni is regarded as the finest of the Cinquecento medallists. He made his reputation in commissions he received from the Habsburg monarchs Charles V,...
and many other artists", including his protégé Antonis Mor. The Swedes only skimmed the cream of the Habsburg collection, as the works now in Vienna, Madrid and Prague show.
Most of the booty remained in Sweden after Christina's departure for exile: she only took about 70 to 80 paintings with her, including about 25 portraits of her friends and family, and some 50 paintings, mostly Italian, from the Prague loot, as well as statues, jewels, 72 tapestries, and various other works of art. She was concerned that the royal collections would be claimed by her successor, and prudently sent them ahead to Antwerp in a ship before she abdicated.
Christina greatly expanded her collection during her exile in Rome, for example adding the five small Raphael
Raphael
Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino , better known simply as Raphael, was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. His work is admired for its clarity of form and ease of composition and for its visual achievement of the Neoplatonic ideal of human grandeur...
predella
Predella
A predella is the platform or step on which an altar stands . In painting, the predella is the painting or sculpture along the frame at the bottom of an altarpiece...
panels from the Colonna Altarpiece, including the Agony in the Garden
Agony in the Garden
The Agony in the Garden refers to the events in the life of Jesus between the Last Supper and Jesus' arrest. Jesus' struggle praying and discussing with God, before accepting his sacrifice, before his arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane also denotes a state of mind - agony.-Scriptural...
now reunited with the main panel in New York, which were bought from a convent near Rome. She was apparently given Titian's Death of Actaeon by the greatest collector of the age, Archduke Leopold William of Austria, Viceroy in Brussels - she received many such gifts from Catholic royalty after her conversion, and gave some generous gifts herself, notably Albrecht Dürer
Albrecht Dürer
Albrecht Dürer was a German painter, printmaker, engraver, mathematician, and theorist from Nuremberg. His prints established his reputation across Europe when he was still in his twenties, and he has been conventionally regarded as the greatest artist of the Northern Renaissance ever since...
's panels of Adam and Eve to Philip IV of Spain
Philip IV of Spain
Philip IV was King of Spain between 1621 and 1665, sovereign of the Spanish Netherlands, and King of Portugal until 1640...
(now Prado).
On her death she left her collection to Cardinal Decio Azzolino, who himself died within a year, leaving the collection to his nephew, who sold it to Don Livio Odescalchi, commander of the Papal army, at which point it contained 275 paintings, 140 of them Italian. The year after Odescalchi's death in 1713, his heirs began protracted negotiations with the great French connoisseur and collector Pierre Crozat
Pierre Crozat
thumb|265px|[[Rembrandt]]'s painting [[Danaë |Danae]] from Crozat's collection.Pierre Crozat was a French art collector at the center of a broad circle of cognoscenti; he was the brother of Antoine Crozat....
, acting as intermediary for Philippe, duc d'Orléans. The sale was finally concluded and the paintings delivered in 1721. The French experts complained that Christina had cut down several paintings to fit her ceilings, and had over-restored some of the best works, especially the Correggios, implicating Carlo Maratti.
The collection in Paris
Philippe I, Duke of Orléans
Philippe of France was the youngest son of Louis XIII of France and his queen consort Anne of Austria. His older brother was the famous Louis XIV, le roi soleil. Styled Duke of Anjou from birth, Philippe became Duke of Orléans upon the death of his uncle Gaston, Duke of Orléans...
(1640–1701); the "collection" as catalogued was by no means all the art owned by the Dukes, but recorded only that part kept together in the Palais-Royal for public viewing. He also inherited small but high quality collections from Henrietta Anne Stuart, his father's first wife, in 1701 and his father's lover, the Chevalier de Lorraine in 1702.
According to Reitlinger, his most active phase of collecting began in about 1715, the year he became Regent on the death of his uncle Louis XIV, after which he no doubt acquired an extra edge in negotiations. He also began to be presented with many paintings, most notably the three Titian poesies now in Edinburgh and Boston, which were given by Philip V of Spain
Philip V of Spain
Philip V was King of Spain from 15 November 1700 to 15 January 1724, when he abdicated in favor of his son Louis, and from 6 September 1724, when he assumed the throne again upon his son's death, to his death.Before his reign, Philip occupied an exalted place in the royal family of France as a...
to the French ambassador, the Duc de Gramont
Gramont
Gramont is the name of an old French noble family, whose name is connected to the castle of Gramont, Agramont in Spanish, in the French Basque province of Lower Navarre.- Key representatives :...
, who in turn presented them to the Regent.
Christina's collection only joined Philippe's shortly before the end of his life and most of the other works were bought in France, like the Sebastiano del Piombo
Sebastiano del Piombo
Sebastiano del Piombo , byname of Sebastiano Luciani, was an Italian Renaissance-Mannerist painter of the early 16th century famous for his combination of the colors of the Venetian school and the monumental forms of the Roman school.- Biography :Sebastiano del Piombo belongs to the painting school...
Raising of Lazarus, with some from the Netherlands or Italy, like the Nicolas Poussin
Nicolas Poussin
Nicolas Poussin was a French painter in the classical style. His work predominantly features clarity, logic, and order, and favors line over color. His work serves as an alternative to the dominant Baroque style of the 17th century...
set of the Seven Sacraments, bought from a Dutch collection by Cardinal Dubois
Guillaume Dubois
Guillaume Dubois was a French cardinal and statesman.-Early years:Dubois, the third of the four great Cardinal-Ministers , was born in Brive-la-Gaillarde, in Limousin...
in 1716. Other sources included the heirs of Cardinals Richelieu and Mazarin, and Cardinal Dubois, with an especially important group from Colbert's
Jean-Baptiste Colbert
Jean-Baptiste Colbert was a French politician who served as the Minister of Finances of France from 1665 to 1683 under the rule of King Louis XIV. His relentless hard work and thrift made him an esteemed minister. He achieved a reputation for his work of improving the state of French manufacturing...
heir the Marquis de Seignelay
Jean-Baptiste Colbert, Marquis de Seignelay
Jean-Baptiste Antoine Colbert, Marquis de Seignelay was a French politician. He was the eldest son of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, nephew of Charles Colbert de Croissy and cousin of Jean-Baptiste Colbert de Torcy....
, and others from the Dukes of Noailles, Gramont, Vendôme and other French collectors.
The paintings were housed in two suites of large rooms running side-by-side down the west or library wing of the palace, with the smaller Dutch and Flemish works in smaller rooms. The gallery suites of rooms still retained much of their original furniture, porcelain and wall-decorations from their use by Phillippe's father as grand reception rooms and according to a visitor in 1765 it was "impossible to imagine anything more richly furnished or decorated with more art and taste". Rearrangements had been made to accommodate the paintings; connoisseurs particularly praised the Galerie à la Lanterne, with its even, sunless top light diffused from the cupola overhead. For most of the 18th century it was easy to visit the collection, and very many people did so, helped by the printed catalogue of 1727, republished in 1737, Description des Tableaux du Palais Royal. This contained 495 paintings, though some continued to be added, and a few disposed of.
Pierre Crozat
thumb|265px|[[Rembrandt]]'s painting [[Danaë |Danae]] from Crozat's collection.Pierre Crozat was a French art collector at the center of a broad circle of cognoscenti; he was the brother of Antoine Crozat....
for his grand private collection in his Parisian hôtel; the mixture on a wall of erotic and religious subjects was disapproved of by some visitors. The collection was most notable for Italian paintings of the High
High Renaissance
The expression High Renaissance, in art history, is a periodizing convention used to denote the apogee of the visual arts in the Italian Renaissance...
and Late Renaissance, especially Venetian works. The collection included no fewer than five of the poesies painted for Philip II of Spain
Philip II of Spain
Philip II was King of Spain, Portugal, Naples, Sicily, and, while married to Mary I, King of England and Ireland. He was lord of the Seventeen Provinces from 1556 until 1581, holding various titles for the individual territories such as duke or count....
, of which two are now in Edinburgh, two in London (Wallace Collection
Wallace Collection
The Wallace Collection is a museum in London, with a world-famous range of fine and decorative arts from the 15th to the 19th centuries with large holdings of French 18th-century paintings, furniture, arms & armour, porcelain and Old Master paintings arranged into 25 galleries.It was established in...
and National Gallery), and one in Boston
Boston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
. A series of four mythological allegories by Veronese
Paolo Veronese
Paolo Veronese was an Italian painter of the Renaissance in Venice, famous for paintings such as The Wedding at Cana and The Feast in the House of Levi...
are now divided between the Fitzwilliam Museum
Fitzwilliam Museum
The Fitzwilliam Museum is the art and antiquities museum of the University of Cambridge, located on Trumpington Street opposite Fitzwilliam Street in central Cambridge, England. It receives around 300,000 visitors annually. Admission is free....
in Cambridge, and the Frick Collection
Frick Collection
The Frick Collection is an art museum located in Manhattan, New York City, United States.- History :It is housed in the former Henry Clay Frick House, which was designed by Thomas Hastings and constructed in 1913-1914. John Russell Pope altered and enlarged the building in the early 1930s to adapt...
(with two, one illustrated above) and Metropolitan Museum in New York. Another Veronese series, the four Allegories of Love now in the National Gallery, hung as overdoor
Overdoor
An "overdoor" is a painting, bas-relief or decorative panel, generally in a horizontal format, that is set, typically within ornamental mouldings, over a door, or was originally intended for this purpose.The overdoor is usually architectural in form, but may take the form of a cartouche in Rococo...
s in the central salon, which also held the larger Veronese series, three of the Titian poesies and Correggios.
The collection included (on the contemporary attributions) 28 Titians, most now regarded as workshop pieces but including several of his finest works, 12 Raphael
Raphael
Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino , better known simply as Raphael, was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. His work is admired for its clarity of form and ease of composition and for its visual achievement of the Neoplatonic ideal of human grandeur...
s, 16 Guido Reni
Guido Reni
Guido Reni was an Italian painter of high-Baroque style.-Biography:Born in Bologna into a family of musicians, Guido Reni was the son of Daniele Reni and Ginevra de’ Pozzi. As a child of nine, he was apprenticed under the Bolognese studio of Denis Calvaert. Soon after, he was joined in that...
s, 16 Veroneses, 12 Tintorettos, 25 paintings by Annibale Carracci
Annibale Carracci
Annibale Carracci was an Italian Baroque painter.-Early career:Annibale Carracci was born in Bologna, and in all likelihood first apprenticed within his family...
and 7 by Lodovico Caracci, 3 major Correggios plus ten no longer accepted as by him, and 3 Caravaggios. Attributions no longer accepted, and probably regarded as dubious even then were 2 Michelangelos, and 3 Leonardos. There were few works from the 15th century, except for a Giovanni Bellini
Giovanni Bellini
Giovanni Bellini was an Italian Renaissance painter, probably the best known of the Bellini family of Venetian painters. His father was Jacopo Bellini, his brother was Gentile Bellini, and his brother-in-law was Andrea Mantegna. He is considered to have revolutionized Venetian painting, moving it...
. The collection reflected the general contemporary confusion outside Spain as to what the works of the great Velázquez
Diego Velázquez
Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez was a Spanish painter who was the leading artist in the court of King Philip IV. He was an individualistic artist of the contemporary Baroque period, important as a portrait artist...
actually looked like; the works attributed to him were of high quality but by other artists such as Orazio Gentileschi
Orazio Gentileschi
Orazio Lomi Gentileschi was an Italian Baroque painter, one of more important painters influenced by Caravaggio...
.
Poussin
Poussin refers to:*Charles Jean de la Vallée-Poussin Belgian mathematician*Charles-Louis-Joseph-Xavier de la Vallée-Poussin Belgian geologist and mineralogist, father of Charles Jean*Nicolas Poussin , French painter...
. There were paintings by Philippe de Champaigne
Philippe de Champaigne
Philippe de Champaigne was a Flemish-born French Baroque era painter, a major exponent of the French school.-Early life:Born in Brussels of a poor family, Champaigne was a pupil of the landscape painter Jacques Fouquières...
now in the Wallace Collection
Wallace Collection
The Wallace Collection is a museum in London, with a world-famous range of fine and decorative arts from the 15th to the 19th centuries with large holdings of French 18th-century paintings, furniture, arms & armour, porcelain and Old Master paintings arranged into 25 galleries.It was established in...
and Metropolitan Museum, and a Eustache Le Sueur
Eustache Le Sueur
Eustache Le Sueur or Lesueur , one of the founders of the French Academy of Painting, was born in Paris, where he passed his whole life....
which turned up in 1997 over a door in the Naval & Military Club
Naval & Military Club
The Naval and Military Club is a gentlemen's club in London, England. It was founded in 1862 because the three then existing military clubs in London - the United Service, the Junior United Service and the Army and Navy - were all full. The membership was long restricted to military officers...
and is now in the National Gallery. The Flemish works were dominated by Rubens
Rubens
Rubens is often used to refer to Peter Paul Rubens , the Flemish artist.Rubens may also refer to:- People :Family name* Paul Rubens Rubens is often used to refer to Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640), the Flemish artist.Rubens may also refer to:- People :Family name* Paul Rubens (composer) Rubens is...
with 19 paintings, including a group of 12 studies now widely dispersed, van Dyck with 10 works and David Teniers
David Teniers
David Teniers may refer to three Flemish artists, father, son, and grandson:*David Teniers the Elder , turned from large religious paintings to landscapes and genre scenes...
with 9. The Dutch paintings included 6 Rembrandts, 7 works by Caspar Netscher
Caspar Netscher
Caspar Netscher was a Dutch portrait and genre painter. He was a master in depicting oriental rugs, silk and brocade and introduced an international style to the Northern Netherlands.-Life:...
(one now Wallace Collection) and 3 by Frans van Mieris (one now National Gallery) that were more highly regarded then than they are now. There were 3 Gerrit Dous and 4 Wouwermans.
Philippe's son Louis d'Orléans, religious and somewhat neurotic, attacked with a knife one of the most famous works, Correggio's Leda and the Swan
Leda and the Swan
Leda and the Swan is a motif from Greek mythology in which Zeus came to Leda in the form of a swan. According to later Greek mythology, Leda bore Helen and Polydeuces, children of Zeus, while at the same time bearing Castor and Clytemnestra, children of her husband Tyndareus, the King of Sparta. In...
, now in Berlin, and ordered the painter Charles-Antoine Coypel
Charles-Antoine Coypel
Charles-Antoine Coypel was a French painter, art commentator, and playwright. He lived in Paris. He was the son of the artist Antoine Coypel and grandson of Noël Coypel. Charles-Antoine inherited his father’s design and painting duties as premier peintre du roi at the French court when his father...
to cut up all three of the great Correggio mythological works in the presence of his chaplain, which Coypel did, but saving and repairing the pieces. The Leda went to Frederick the Great of Prussia
Prussia
Prussia was a German kingdom and historic state originating out of the Duchy of Prussia and the Margraviate of Brandenburg. For centuries, the House of Hohenzollern ruled Prussia, successfully expanding its size by way of an unusually well-organized and effective army. Prussia shaped the history...
, the Danäe
Danaë (Correggio)
Danäe is a painting by the Italian Renaissance artist Correggio, executed around 1531 and housed in the Galleria Borghese in Rome.-History:...
to Venice, where it was stolen and eventually sold to the English consul at Leghorn
Livorno
Livorno , traditionally Leghorn , is a port city on the Tyrrhenian Sea on the western edge of Tuscany, Italy. It is the capital of the Province of Livorno, having a population of approximately 160,000 residents in 2009.- History :...
, and Jupiter and Io
Jupiter and Io
Jupiter and Io is a painting by the Italian late Renaissance artist Antonio Allegri da Correggio. It is housed in the Kunsthistorisches Museum of Vienna, Austria.-History:...
went to the Imperial collection in Vienna. Some of the Flemish paintings were sold at auction in Paris, June 1727.
Beginning in 1785, a series of 352 engravings of the paintings were published on a subscription basis, until the series was abandoned during the Terror
Reign of Terror
The Reign of Terror , also known simply as The Terror , was a period of violence that occurred after the onset of the French Revolution, incited by conflict between rival political factions, the Girondins and the Jacobins, and marked by mass executions of "enemies of...
, by which time the paintings themselves had been sold. It was finally published in book form in 1806. These prints have greatly reduced the uncertainty that accompanies the identity of works in most dispersed former collections. There had already been many prints of the collection; the Seven Sacraments were especially popular among the middle classes of Paris in the 1720s.
The Gonzagas and Charles I
Another famous collection whose history was entwined with the Orleans Collection was that assembled by the GonzagaHouse of Gonzaga
The Gonzaga family ruled Mantua in Northern Italy from 1328 to 1708.-History:In 1433, Gianfrancesco I assumed the title of Marquis of Mantua, and in 1530 Federico II received the title of Duke of Mantua. In 1531, the family acquired the Duchy of Monferrato through marriage...
s of Mantua
Mantua
Mantua is a city and comune in Lombardy, Italy and capital of the province of the same name. Mantua's historic power and influence under the Gonzaga family, made it one of the main artistic, cultural and notably musical hubs of Northern Italy and the country as a whole...
, especially Francesco II
Francesco II Gonzaga, Marquess of Mantua
Francesco II Gonzaga was the ruler of the Italian city of Mantua from 1484 until his death.-Biography:Gonzaga was born in Mantua, the son of Marquess Federico I Gonzaga. He had a career as a condottiero acting as Venice's commander from 1489 to 1498...
(1466–1519) and his son Federico II (1500–1540). Their court artists included Mantegna
Andrea Mantegna
Andrea Mantegna was an Italian painter, a student of Roman archeology, and son in law of Jacopo Bellini. Like other artists of the time, Mantegna experimented with perspective, e.g., by lowering the horizon in order to create a sense of greater monumentality...
and Giulio Romano
Giulio Romano
Giulio Romano was an Italian painter and architect. A pupil of Raphael, his stylistic deviations from high Renaissance classicism help define the 16th-century style known as Mannerism...
, and they commissioned work directly from Titian, Raphael, Correggio and other artists, some of which were given as gifts to Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor
Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor
Charles V was ruler of the Holy Roman Empire from 1519 and, as Charles I, of the Spanish Empire from 1516 until his voluntary retirement and abdication in favor of his younger brother Ferdinand I and his son Philip II in 1556.As...
, to whom Mantua was effectively a client state. The most important of these gifts were the mythological works by Correggio, later to be mutilated in Paris. By the early 17th century the dynasty was in terminal decline, and the bulk of their portable art collection was bought by the keen collector Charles I of England
Charles I of England
Charles I was King of England, King of Scotland, and King of Ireland from 27 March 1625 until his execution in 1649. Charles engaged in a struggle for power with the Parliament of England, attempting to obtain royal revenue whilst Parliament sought to curb his Royal prerogative which Charles...
in 1625-27. Charles's other notable purchases included the Raphael Cartoons
Raphael Cartoons
The Raphael Cartoons are seven large cartoons for tapestries, now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, painted by the High Renaissance painter Raphael in 1515-16 and showing scenes from the Gospels and Acts of the Apostles...
and volumes of drawings by Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci was an Italian Renaissance polymath: painter, sculptor, architect, musician, scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist and writer whose genius, perhaps more than that of any other figure, epitomized the Renaissance...
, and his own most notable commissions were from Rubens and van Dyck. By the time his collection of paintings was seized and sold after his execution in 1649 by the English Commonwealth it was one of the finest outside Italy. Meanwhile, three years after the sale to Charles, Mantua was sacked by Imperial troops, who added much of what was left there to the Imperial collection in Prague, where they rejoined the diplomatic gifts of a century earlier.
Some Mantuan paintings therefore passed from Prague via Christina to the Orleans Collection, while more were bought by French collectors in the London "Sale of the Late King's Goods" in 1650, and later found their way to the Palais-Royal. For example, an Infancy of Jupiter by Giulio Romano, bought from Mantua, left Charles' collection for France, passed to the Orleans Collection and the London sales, and after a spell back in France returned to England and was later bought by the National Gallery in 1859.
Other paintings in the same series were recovered for the Royal Collection
Royal Collection
The Royal Collection is the art collection of the British Royal Family. It is property of the monarch as sovereign, but is held in trust for her successors and the nation. It contains over 7,000 paintings, 40,000 watercolours and drawings, and about 150,000 old master prints, as well as historical...
in 1660; Charles II
Charles II of England
Charles II was monarch of the three kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland.Charles II's father, King Charles I, was executed at Whitehall on 30 January 1649, at the climax of the English Civil War...
was able to exert pressure on most English buyers of his father's collection, but those gone abroad were beyond his reach. One important Rubens of Charles', the Landscape with St George and the Dragon (of 1630 - St George has Charles's features, the rescued princess those of his Queen), which passed via the Ducs de Richelieu to the Palais-Royal and London, had always been recognised for what it was, and was bought back for the Royal Collection by George IV in 1814.
Another picture commissioned by Charles, the Finding of Moses by Gentileschi, painted for the Queen's House
Queen's House
The Queen's House, Greenwich, is a former royal residence built between 1614-1617 in Greenwich, then a few miles downriver from London, and now a district of the city. Its architect was Inigo Jones, for whom it was a crucial early commission, for Anne of Denmark, the queen of King James I of England...
, Greenwich
Greenwich
Greenwich is a district of south London, England, located in the London Borough of Greenwich.Greenwich is best known for its maritime history and for giving its name to the Greenwich Meridian and Greenwich Mean Time...
, was returned to Charles' widow Henrietta Maria in France in 1660. By the time it entered the Orleans Collection a half-century later, it was regarded as by Velázquez. It then was one of the Castle Howard paintings, and was only correctly identified after the existence of Gentileschi's second version in the Prado became known in England. After a sale in 1995 it is now on loan to the National Gallery from the current owner. Phillippe's father's first wife, Henrietta Anne Stuart, was Charles I's daughter, and her small but select collection had been mostly given to her by her brother Charles II from the reclaimed royal collection on her marriage in 1661. On her death forty years later this was left to Phillippe.
Dispersal in London
Louis Philippe II, Duke of Orléans
Louis Philippe Joseph d'Orléans commonly known as Philippe, was a member of a cadet branch of the House of Bourbon, the ruling dynasty of France. He actively supported the French Revolution and adopted the name Philippe Égalité, but was nonetheless guillotined during the Reign of Terror...
, the Regent's great-grandson, whose huge income could not keep pace with his gambling habit, had sold his equally famous collection of engraved gems to Catherine the Great of Russia, and in 1788 he was in serious negotiations with a syndicate organized by James Christie
James Christie (auctioneer)
James Christie was the founder of auction house Christie's. Born in Perth in 1730, Christie went on to found Christie's auctioneers in December 5, 1766...
, founder of Christies, the London auctioneer, for the sale of the paintings. Christie got as far as arranging that the collection should be made over to him upon the deposit of 100,000 guineas in the Bank of England, before the negotiations collapsed when the Prince of Wales having subscribed his name in the book for 7,000 guineas, and the his brothers the dukes of York and Clarence for 5,000 each, no further subscribers were to be found. It was Dawson Turner
Dawson Turner
Dawson Turner was an English banker, botanist and antiquary.-Life:Turner was the son of James Turner, head of the Gurney and Turner's Yarmouth Bank and Elizabeth Cotman, the only daughter of the mayor of Yarmouth, John Cotman. He was educated at North Walsham Grammar School, Norfolk and at Barton...
's opinion that the failure was owing to the general sense that at the division of the spoils the lion's share would go to the Royals.
In 1792 Philippe Égalité impulsively sold the collection en bloc to a banker of Brussels who immediately sold it at a huge profit to the enlightened connoisseur Jean-Joseph de Laborde de Méréville
Jean-Joseph de Laborde
- Biography:Laborde was born near Jaca in Aragon, into a modest béarnaise family. When he reached adolescence he joined his uncle, who was head of a maritime import-export company at Saint-Jean-de-Luz, and took over as head of the business on the cousin's death...
, who set about adding a gallery to house it attached to his hôtel in rue d'Artois. Ruined by events, he was forced to sell it once more.
The 147 German, Dutch and Flemish paintings were sold by Orléans to Thomas Moore Slade, a British dealer, in a syndicate with two London bankers and the 7th Lord Kinnaird
Lord Kinnaird
Lord Kinnaird was a title in the Peerage of Scotland. It was created in 1682 for George Kinnaird. The ninth Lord was created Baron Rossie, of Rossie in the County of Perth, in the Peerage of the United Kingdom in 1831, with normal remainder to the heirs male of his body...
, for 350,000 livres in 1792, and taken to London for sale. There were protests from the French artists and public, and from the Duke's creditors, and Slade found it prudent to tell the French the pictures were going overland to Calais
Calais
Calais is a town in Northern France in the department of Pas-de-Calais, of which it is a sub-prefecture. Although Calais is by far the largest city in Pas-de-Calais, the department's capital is its third-largest city of Arras....
, but actually to sneak them onto a barge by night, and ship them down the Seine
Seine
The Seine is a -long river and an important commercial waterway within the Paris Basin in the north of France. It rises at Saint-Seine near Dijon in northeastern France in the Langres plateau, flowing through Paris and into the English Channel at Le Havre . It is navigable by ocean-going vessels...
to Le Havre
Le Havre
Le Havre is a city in the Seine-Maritime department of the Haute-Normandie region in France. It is situated in north-western France, on the right bank of the mouth of the river Seine on the English Channel. Le Havre is the most populous commune in the Haute-Normandie region, although the total...
. These paintings were exhibited for sale in London's West End
West End of London
The West End of London is an area of central London, containing many of the city's major tourist attractions, shops, businesses, government buildings, and entertainment . Use of the term began in the early 19th century to describe fashionable areas to the west of Charing Cross...
in April 1793 at 125 Pall Mall
Pall Mall, London
Pall Mall is a street in the City of Westminster, London, and parallel to The Mall, from St. James's Street across Waterloo Place to the Haymarket; while Pall Mall East continues into Trafalgar Square. The street is a major thoroughfare in the St James's area of London, and a section of the...
, where admissions at 1 shilling each reached two thousand a day, and sold to various buyers.
Philippe Égalité, as he had renamed himself, was arrested in April 1793; he would be guillotined 6 November, but in the meantime sale negotiations for the Italian and French paintings were renewed, and they were sold for 750,000 livres
French livre
The livre was the currency of France until 1795. Several different livres existed, some concurrently. The livre was the name of both units of account and coins.-Etymology:...
to Édouard Walkiers, a banker of Brussels
Brussels
Brussels , officially the Brussels Region or Brussels-Capital Region , is the capital of Belgium and the de facto capital of the European Union...
, who soon after sold them on, unpacked, to his cousin, Count François-Louis-Joseph de Laborde-Méréville, who had hoped to use them to add to the French national collection. After the start of the Terror, and the execution of his father as well as the Duke of Orléans, Laborde-Méréville saw he had to escape France, and brought the collection to London in early 1793.
The French and Italian paintings then spent five years in London with Laborde-Méréville, the subject of some complicated financial manoeuvres, including the failure of an attempt supported by King George III and the Prime Minister Pitt the Younger to buy them for the nation. They were finally bought in 1798 by a syndicate of the canal and coal-magnate Francis Egerton, 3rd Duke of Bridgewater
Francis Egerton, 3rd Duke of Bridgewater
Francis Egerton, 3rd Duke of Bridgewater , known as Lord Francis Egerton until 1748, was a British nobleman, the younger son of the 1st Duke...
, his nephew and heir, Earl Gower
George Leveson-Gower, 1st Duke of Sutherland
George Granville Leveson-Gower, 1st Duke of Sutherland KG, PC , known as Viscount Trentham from 1758 to 1786, as Earl Gower from 1786 to 1803 and as The Marquess of Stafford from 1803 to 1833, was a British politician, diplomat, landowner and patron of the arts. He is estimated to have been the...
, later 1st Duke of Sutherland
Duke of Sutherland
Duke of Sutherland, derived from Sutherland in Scotland, is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom held by the head of the Leveson-Gower family. It was created by William IV in 1833 for George Leveson-Gower, 2nd Marquess of Stafford...
, and the Earl of Carslisle
Frederick Howard, 5th Earl of Carlisle
Frederick Howard, 5th Earl of Carlisle, KG, KT, PC was a British diplomat and the son of Henry Howard, 4th Earl of Carlisle and his second wife Isabella Byron....
. Gower, who was perhaps the prime mover and must have known the collection well from his time as British ambassador in Paris, contributed 1/8 of the £43,500 price, Carlisle a quarter, and Bridgewater the remaining 5/8s.
Michael Bryan (art historian)
Michael Bryan was an English art historian, art dealer and connoisseur. He was involved in the purchase and resale of the great French Orleans collection of art selling it on to a British syndicate, and owned a fashionable art gallery in Saville Row, London...
in Pall Mall
Pall Mall, London
Pall Mall is a street in the City of Westminster, London, and parallel to The Mall, from St. James's Street across Waterloo Place to the Haymarket; while Pall Mall East continues into Trafalgar Square. The street is a major thoroughfare in the St James's area of London, and a section of the...
, with the larger ones at the Lyceum in the Strand
Strand, London
Strand is a street in the City of Westminster, London, England. The street is just over three-quarters of a mile long. It currently starts at Trafalgar Square and runs east to join Fleet Street at Temple Bar, which marks the boundary of the City of London at this point, though its historical length...
; admission was 2/6d rather than the 1s. usual for such events. On first seeing the collection there, William Hazlitt
William Hazlitt
William Hazlitt was an English writer, remembered for his humanistic essays and literary criticism, and as a grammarian and philosopher. He is now considered one of the great critics and essayists of the English language, placed in the company of Samuel Johnson and George Orwell. Yet his work is...
wrote "I was staggered when I saw the works ... A new sense came upon me, a new heaven and a new Earth stood before me." In 1798, 1800 and 1802 there were auctions of those paintings not sold via the galleries, generally achieving rather low prices, but 94 out of 305 of the paintings were retained by the syndicate, as seems always to have been intended, and these largely remain in their families today. However these paintings represented over half of the valuations placed on the whole portion bought by the syndicate. Even at the often low prices realized, the sales to others, and entry receipts to the exhibitions, realized a total of £42,500, so even allowing for the expenses of the exhibitions and auctions, the syndicate got their works very cheaply. Castle Howard, home of the Earls of Carlisle, originally had fifteen works, now much reduced by sales, donations, and a fire, but the Bridgewater/Sutherland group remain intact to a large degree.
Guinea (British coin)
The guinea is a coin that was minted in the Kingdom of England and later in the Kingdom of Great Britain and the United Kingdom between 1663 and 1813...
. Many Titians were sold, but many Bolognese Baroque works, as well as most of the later (but not the earlier) Raphaels, were retained. The single Watteau went for only 11 gn, while one Carracci was valued at £4,000 for the galley sale, where all 33 Carraccis were sold, while works attributed to Giovanni Bellini
Giovanni Bellini
Giovanni Bellini was an Italian Renaissance painter, probably the best known of the Bellini family of Venetian painters. His father was Jacopo Bellini, his brother was Gentile Bellini, and his brother-in-law was Andrea Mantegna. He is considered to have revolutionized Venetian painting, moving it...
and Caravaggio
Caravaggio
Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio was an Italian artist active in Rome, Naples, Malta, and Sicily between 1593 and 1610. His paintings, which combine a realistic observation of the human state, both physical and emotional, with a dramatic use of lighting, had a formative influence on the Baroque...
remained at the auction stage. The current location of many of the pictures can no longer be traced, and many are now attributed to lesser artists or copyists. Overall the prices realized for the better pictures were high, and in some cases their level would not be reached again for a century or longer. As an extreme case, a Ludovico Carracci
Ludovico Carracci
Ludovico Carracci was an Italian, early-Baroque painter, etcher, and printmaker born in Bologna....
valued at 60gn in 1798 was auctioned by the Duke of Sutherland in 1913 raising 2gn.
The paintings of both portions of the collection were bought by a wide range of wealthy collectors, the great majority English, as the wars with France made travelling to London difficult for others. Major buyers included Thomas Hope, a Dutch banker (distantly of Scottish extraction) sheltering in London from the Napoleonic Wars
Napoleonic Wars
The Napoleonic Wars were a series of wars declared against Napoleon's French Empire by opposing coalitions that ran from 1803 to 1815. As a continuation of the wars sparked by the French Revolution of 1789, they revolutionised European armies and played out on an unprecedented scale, mainly due to...
, who with his brother (of Hope Diamond
Hope Diamond
The Hope Diamond, also known as "Le bleu de France" or "Le Bijou du Roi", is a large, , deep-blue diamond, now housed in the Smithsonian Natural History Museum in Washington, D.C. It is blue to the naked eye because of trace amounts of boron within its crystal structure, but exhibits red...
fame) bought the two large Veronese allegories now in the Frick, and works by "Michelangelo", "Velásquez" and Titian, John Julius Angerstein
John Julius Angerstein
John Julius Angerstein , was a London merchant, Lloyd's under-writer, and patron of the fine arts. The imminent prospect that his collection of paintings was about to be sold by his estate, in 1824, galvanized the founding of the National Gallery, London.Angerstein was born in St Petersburg, Russia...
, a Russian-German banker whose collection later became the foundation of the National Gallery, the Earl of Darnley
John Bligh, 4th Earl of Darnley
John Bligh, 4th Earl of Darnley was a British peer and cricketer.He was the son of John Bligh, 3rd Earl of Darnley and succeeded his father as earl on the latter's death in 1781. He resided at Cobham Hall, near Gravesend in Kent....
, the Earl of Harewood
Edward Lascelles, 1st Earl of Harewood
Edward Lascelles, 1st Earl of Harewood was a British peer and Member of Parliament.Harewood was the son of Edward Lascelles, a customs officer in Barbados. On the death of the childless Edwin Lascelles, 1st Baron Harewood Edward inherited the Lascelles family fortune, made in the West Indies...
, who bought Titian's The Death of Actaeon
The Death of Actaeon
The Death of Actaeon is a late work by Italian Renaissance master Titian, painted in 1559 to 1575 as an oil on canvas and now housed in the National Gallery of London, United Kingdom...
, and Earl FitzWilliam
William FitzWilliam, 4th Earl FitzWilliam
William Wentworth-Fitzwilliam, 4th Earl Fitzwilliam PC , styled Viscount Milton until 1756, was a British Whig statesman of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. In 1782 he inherited his uncle Charles Watson-Wentworth, 2nd Marquess of Rockingham's estates, making him one of the richest people in...
, whose collection was to found the Fitzwilliam Museum
Fitzwilliam Museum
The Fitzwilliam Museum is the art and antiquities museum of the University of Cambridge, located on Trumpington Street opposite Fitzwilliam Street in central Cambridge, England. It receives around 300,000 visitors annually. Admission is free....
.
An analysis by Gerard Reitlinger of "most" of the buyers (of the Italian and French pictures) divides them as follows:
- Nobility - 12, including the syndicate
- Merchants - 10, including 4 Members of Parliament and 3 knights; mostly as speculators according to Reitlinger - their purchases were mostly resold within a few years
- Dealers - 6, including Bryan, who handled matters for the syndicate
- Bankers - Hope and Angerstein (both foreign)
- Painters - 4: Walton, Udney, CoswayRichard CoswayRichard Cosway was a leading English portrait painter—more accurately a miniaturist—of the Regency era. He was a contemporary of John Smart, George Engleheart, William Wood, and Richard Crosse...
and Skipp - Gentleman Amateurs - 6, including William BeckfordWilliam Thomas BeckfordWilliam Thomas Beckford , usually known as William Beckford, was an English novelist, a profligate and consummately knowledgeable art collector and patron of works of decorative art, a critic, travel writer and sometime politician, reputed to be the richest commoner in England...
and the critic Samuel RogersSamuel RogersSamuel Rogers was an English poet, during his lifetime one of the most celebrated, although his fame has long since been eclipsed by his Romantic colleagues and friends Wordsworth, Coleridge and Byron...
.
- a breakdown he describes as "quite unlike anything in Europe and grotesquely unlike pre-revolutionary France", where the main collectors were the tax farmers. Many of the same figures appear in the similar list of buyers of the Northern paintings.
Much of our information about the sales comes from the Memoirs of Painting, with a Chronological History of the Importation of Pictures of Great Masters into England by the Great Artists since the French Revolution, by William Buchanan, published in 1824, of which the first 200 pages of Volume I are devoted to the Orleans sales, listing the works and most prices and buyers. Buchanan was himself involved in the import of art from 1802 onwards, and had his information from the dealers involved. He presents his own "exertions", and those of others, in the area in a thoroughly patriotic light, by implication as a part of the great national struggle with the French. Nicholas Penny
Nicholas Penny
Nicholas Penny, FSA is a British art historian. Since Spring 2008 he has been director of the National Gallery in London....
notes the "somewhat comic" disparity between Buchanan's "sonorous words" on the subject and the "coarse and mercenary business letters" he reprints—many by himself.
The Bridgewater collection
Bridgewater House, Westminster
Bridgewater House is at 14 Cleveland Row, Westminster, London, England. It is a Grade I listed building.The earliest known house on the site was Berkshire House built in about 1626-27 for Thomas Howard, second son of the Earl of Suffolk and Master of the Horse to Charles I of England when he was...
; it has been on public display ever since. The collection contained over 300 paintings, including about 50 Orleans paintings, and was known as the "Stafford Galley" in Cleveland House until the house was rebuilt and renamed as Bridgewater House in 1854, and then as the "Bridgewater Gallery". It was opened in 1803, and could be visited on Wednesday afternoons over four, later three, months in the summer by "acquaintances" of a member of the family (in practice tickets could mostly be obtained by writing and asking for them), or artists recommended by a member of the Royal Academy
Royal Academy
The Royal Academy of Arts is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly, London. The Royal Academy of Arts has a unique position in being an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects whose purpose is to promote the creation, enjoyment and...
. Angerstein's paintings were on display on similar terms in his house in Pall Mall, which from 1824 became the first home of the National Gallery.
On the outbreak of the Second World War in September 1939, the collection was moved from London to Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
. Since 1946 26 paintings, sixteen from the Orleans Collection, known collectively as "the Bridgewater loan" or "the Sutherland Loan" have been on loan to the National Gallery of Scotland
National Gallery of Scotland
The National Gallery of Scotland, in Edinburgh, is the national art gallery of Scotland. An elaborate neoclassical edifice, it stands on The Mound, between the two sections of Edinburgh's Princes Street Gardens...
in Edinburgh, though up to 2008 five from this group had been bought by the Gallery.
The collection has passed by descent to the 7th Duke of Sutherland
Francis Egerton, 7th Duke of Sutherland
Francis Ronald Egerton, 7th Duke of Sutherland , known as Francis Egerton until 2000, is a British peer.Sutherland is the son of Cyril Reginald Egerton, the grandson of Francis Egerton, 3rd Earl of Ellesmere. His mother was Mary, daughter of Sir Ronald Campbell...
, (most of whose wealth is contained in the paintings collection), but in late August 2008 the 7th Duke announced that he wished to sell some of the collection in order to diversify his assets. He has at first offered Diana and Callisto and Diana and Acteon
Diana and Actaeon (Titian)
Diana and Actaeon is a painting by the Italian Renaissance master Titian, finished in 1556–1559, and is considered amongst Titian's greatest works. It portrays the moment in which the goddess Diana meets Actaeon. In 2008–2009, the National Gallery, London and National Gallery of Scotland...
, two works by Titian
Titian
Tiziano Vecelli or Tiziano Vecellio Tiziano Vecelli or Tiziano Vecellio Tiziano Vecelli or Tiziano Vecellio (c. 1488/1490 – 27 August 1576 better known as Titian was an Italian painter, the most important member of the 16th-century Venetian school. He was born in Pieve di Cadore, near...
as a pair to the British national galleries at £100 m (a third of their overall estimated market price) over a period. The National Gallery of Scotland and the National Gallery in London announced they would combine forces to raise the sum, initially in the form of £50 m to purchase Diana and Actaeon paid over three years in instalments and then £50 m for Diana and Callisto paid for similarly from 2013. The campaign gained press support, though it received some criticism for the Duke's motives or (from John Tusa
John Tusa
Sir John Tusa is a British arts administrator, and radio and television journalist. From 1980 to 1986 he was a main presenter of BBC 2's Newsnight programme. From 1995 until 2007 he was managing director of the City of London's Barbican Arts Centre...
and Nigel Carrington
Nigel Carrington
Nigel Carrington is the former Managing Director of the McLaren Group and was previously an international lawyer with Baker & McKenzie. Carrington was appointed as the Rector of the University of the Arts London, succeeding Sir Michael Bichard in 2008....
of the University of the Arts
University of the Arts London
The University of the Arts London, formerly known as the London Institute, is a collegiate university comprising six internationally recognised art, design, fashion and media colleges in London, England...
) for distracting from funding art students In 2009 it was announced that the first £50M for Diana and Actaeon had been raised - the painting will rotate every five years between Edinburgh (first) and London. The appeal for the further £50M for Diana and Callisto is needed.
Titian
- The Three Ages of ManThe Three Ages of Man (Titian)The Three Ages of Man is a painting by Titian, dated to around 1512 and now displayed at the National Gallery of Scotland in Edinburgh. The 90 cm by 151 cm High Renaissance art work was most likely influenced by Giorgione’s themes and motifs of landscapes and nude figures--Titian was...
- 'Diana and Callisto
- Diana and Actaeon Diana and Actaeon (Titian)Diana and Actaeon is a painting by the Italian Renaissance master Titian, finished in 1556–1559, and is considered amongst Titian's greatest works. It portrays the moment in which the goddess Diana meets Actaeon. In 2008–2009, the National Gallery, London and National Gallery of Scotland...
- The Death of ActaeonThe Death of ActaeonThe Death of Actaeon is a late work by Italian Renaissance master Titian, painted in 1559 to 1575 as an oil on canvas and now housed in the National Gallery of London, United Kingdom...
- Venus AnadyomeneVenus Anadyomene (Titian)Venus Anadyomene , is a c.1520 oil painting by Titian, depicting Venus rising from the sea and wringing her hair, either after bathing or after her birth. Venus, said to have been born from a shell, is identified by the shell at bottom left...
- Venus and AdonisVenus and Adonis (Titian, Rome)Venus and Adonis is a painting by the Italian late Renaissance artist Titian, executed around 1560. It is currently housed in the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica in Rome. It is one of the numerous version of the same subject....
Other artists
- The Raising of Lazarus , by Sebastiano del Piombo
- Jupiter and IoJupiter and IoJupiter and Io is a painting by the Italian late Renaissance artist Antonio Allegri da Correggio. It is housed in the Kunsthistorisches Museum of Vienna, Austria.-History:...
and Danaë by Correggio - Origin of the Milky Way Origin of the Milky Way (Tintoretto)The Origin of the Milky Way is a painting by the Italian late Renaissance master Jacopo Tintoretto , in the National Gallery, London, formerly in the Orleans Collection....
, by Tintoretto - The MillThe Mill (Rembrandt)The Mill is a painting by Dutch baroque artist Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn. It is in the permanent collection of the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC. For a long time, the attribution to Rembrandt was regarded as doubtful, it has been restored in recent years, although it is not...
, by Rembrandt
Current locations
- National Gallery, London - at least 25 works, plus two currently on loan there.
- National Gallery of Scotland - sixteen works, including those on loan.
- Wallace Collection, London - 6 works
- Metropolitan Museum, New York - At least three works, a RaphaelRaphaelRaffaello Sanzio da Urbino , better known simply as Raphael, was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. His work is admired for its clarity of form and ease of composition and for its visual achievement of the Neoplatonic ideal of human grandeur...
predella panel, a Philippe de ChampaignePhilippe de ChampaignePhilippe de Champaigne was a Flemish-born French Baroque era painter, a major exponent of the French school.-Early life:Born in Brussels of a poor family, Champaigne was a pupil of the landscape painter Jacques Fouquières...
, and a Veronese - National Gallery of Art, Washington - four works by: Rembrandt, Ludovico CarracciLudovico CarracciLudovico Carracci was an Italian, early-Baroque painter, etcher, and printmaker born in Bologna....
, Sébastien BourdonSébastien BourdonSébastien Bourdon was a French painter and engraver. His chef d'œuvre is The Crucifixion of St. Peter made for the cathedral of Notre Dame....
and ?Jan Cossiers (as well as two important works from other sources once in the collection of Earl Gower). - Frick Collection, New York - two Veroneses (see above), two portraits of Frans Snyders and his wife by van Dyck
Other works are in: Berlin, Vienna, Dresden, Malibu, Paris, Rome, Boston (Titian Rape of Europa), Tokyo, Kansas City, and many other cities.
Further reading
- Cristina di Svezia, Le Collezioni Reali (exhibition catalogue), Montadori Electa, Milan, 2003, ISBN 8837024045
- Folliot, Franck, Forray, Anne, and Mardrus, Françoise; articles in Le Palais-Royal (exhibition catalogue), Musée Carnavalet, Paris 1988
- Macgregor, Arthur, ed.; The Late King's Goods. Collections, Possessions and Patronage of Charles I in the Light of the Commonwealth Sale Inventories, Alistair McAlpine / Oxford University Press, 1989, ISBN 0199201714
- Brotton, Jerry. Sale of the Late King's Goods: Charles I & His Art Collection, Macmillan, 2006, ISBN 1405041528
External links
- The Bridgewater Syndicate Web feature from the National Gallery
- The Bridgewater Collection: Its Impact on Collecting and Display in Britain Lecture text by Susanna Avery-Quash, Research Curator in the History of Collecting: delivered at the National Gallery 7 December 2009