Country House Studies and the Museum
Country house studies
in relation to the museum arguably commenced with The Destruction of the
Country House 1875-1975 held at the Victoria and Albert Museum in 1974.
Described as a landmark exhibition, it was commissioned by then V & A
Director Roy Strong and curated by John Harris (RIBA), Marcus Binney (Country Life), and Peter Thornton (V
& A department of Furniture and Woodwork). The purpose of the event was to
raise consciousness about the plight of country houses that had been
demolished, or were in danger of being destroyed. The curators made use of the
museum to design a “Hall of Destruction” with photos of lost country houses in
an installation.[1]
The success of the exhibition led to the formation of the pressure group, “Save
Britain’s Heritage” in 1975. The guide that accompanied the exhibition had
contributions from a wide range of specialists like the then Surveyor of the
Queen’s Pictures, Oliver Millar, and a number of aristocrats themselves. In a less pessimistic and more celebratory
mode, the National Gallery of Art in Washington in 1985 recreated the look of
country house surroundings in a modern museum, and as Giles Waterfield points
out, occurred at a time when the collections of three great houses were threatened:
Kedleston Hall, Calke Abbey, and Weston Park, disasters narrowly averted by
financial life-saving from the National Heritage Memorial Fund.[2]
Though interest in the country house has been maintained via books, films and
TV programmes such as Brideshead Revisited and more recently the soap
opera du jour, the “Upstairs/Downstairs” of Downton Abbey, interest in
studying the country house and collections by academics has waned, though there
are significant exceptions.
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| Hall of Lost Houses from the “Destruction of the Country House” exhibition, 1974. |
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| Interior of Washington exhibition of Treasure Houses of England. |
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| National Gallery, Trafalgar Square, London. |
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|
Nicholas
Penny relaxes in front of country-house red.
|
The National Gallery & the Heritage Hang.
Where the country
house experience really impacts on the museum is in debates by leading
magnifici of the last few hundred years on how their collections should be hung
and displayed to the public. One of the directors of the National Gallery,
Michael Levey proved to be very hostile to the Victorian architecture of the
main floor galleries, seeking neutrality in display spaces in order to let the pictures
speak for themselves, an approach championed by his predecessor Martin Davies.[3] This approach was to be continued by later
directors, who grew increasingly unhappy with the diversity of room styles. The
most vocal of these was Neil MacGregor, a scion of the Scottish middle class,
Anthony Blunt’s favourite student, and a lecturer at Reading. In the 1980s, appraising
the hanging of pictures at the NG, a young Neil McGregor wryly observed:
“The Underground long
ago overtook the weather as a source of London grousing. Both must soon be in
danger of being outstripped by the National Gallery. The newly reopened French
and Spanish rooms live sadly up to one’s expectations. What are those
expectations? The early Italian room was some time ago rehung without being
redecorated, so that the previous hanging can still be read in dust-marks on
the wall, a palimpsest of past taste. The Pieros and Botticellis have for years
had to fight for attention between turquoise cornice and tangerine carpet. The
seventeenth-century Italian room contrives to look like a muddled country-house
saloon, where a work of the quality of Annibale’s Pieta` jostles with the
third-rate.”
As Samaurez-Smith points
out, MacGregor’s ironic observations heralds a complete change from the minimalist
display aesthetic towards a display similar to the look of pictures on walls of country houses in the
19th century.[4] This was first pioneered by the Rubens
scholar Michael Jaffé at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge in the 1970s.[5]
As we have seen Jaffé was familiar with country house displays like Kingston
Lacy where the actual hangings were caught in paintings by Alec Cobbe. This was
followed by Timothy Clifford with his refurbishment of the Manchester City Art
Galleries in the mid and late 1970s, and subsequently the NG of Scotland at
Edinburgh. This leads on to the current
philosophy of hanging, the “heritage hang”, whose ideas were caught by the
architecture historian Gavin Stamp writing in the Telegraph in 1986. “Despite
the lessons about the treatment of historical interiors and the hanging of old
paintings provided by galleries throughout the world, our academic experts have
tried to treat works of art in isolation. Their ideal has been but one painting
hung on a bare, colourless wall, ignoring the complementary power of fine
architecture and rich colour. The result has been that so many of our museum
interiors have been neutralised with dropped ceilings, hessian walls, incongruous
display stands and gallons and gallons of white paint.”
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| Interior of Fitzwilliam Museum, English pictures against country-house red. |
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| Elizabeth Frink, Portrait of Michael Jaffé, 1992, bronze, patinated green, ht, 30 cm, (including base), Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge. |
 |
|
Alec
Cobbe, The National Trust's Picture Hanging Committee (Bobby Gore, Sir Brinsley
Ford, Professor Michael Jaffé and Tom Helme), Kingston Lacy, 1985, Acrylic on
board, 30 x 29 cm, NT, Kingston Lacy.
|
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| Interior of Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, Venetian paintings against country-house green. |
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| Jacopo Palma il Vecchio, Venus and Cupid, c. 1523-24, oil on canvas, Oil on canvas, 118.1 x 208.9 cm, Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge. |
At Home with the Pictures.
Neil McGregor’s
comparison of the seventeenth-century Italian room at the NG to the “country-house
saloon” underlines how country house display lurked in the subconscious of the
magnifici, which increasingly saw the country house design aesthetic as
unsuitable for a modern picture gallery. In the Victorian era which saw huge
crowds attending art galleries, pictures tended to be hung densely with hardly
any space between them, much as pictures were hung in stately homes. This kind
of “dense hang” was criticised by such cultural commissaries as Butler Wood,
Director of an exhibition of English Art in the early twentieth-century.
Seeking a new kind of display Butler Wood wished to “...show the works of art
in some natural and harmonious arrangement with one another…The formalized and
irritating effect of the prevailing method of picture exhibition is familiar.
The typical picture gallery with its crowded unspaced paintings, whose exhibits
crush and jostle with each other, is very much the counterpart of a mob.”[6] Instead of conveying a crowded, ungovernable
public space, curators wanted to give the impression of a less formal context:
furniture and ceramics should be used to give collections “...the air of being
at home in a somewhat natural combination.” Consequently, museums like the
Fitzwilliam were transformed by its Director, Sydney Cockerell (appointed in
1908 until 1937) who knew about interior design as he was a friend of William
Morris, John Ruskin and a number of artists.
Thus Cockerell ensured that rooms were “decorated in cool colours with
an emphasis on varied textures” (Waterfield) and he also displayed paintings
with sculpture, and most daringly, rugs and sometimes even flowers. This made
for a more, refined, elegant atmosphere though there would be a backlash
against it, as encapsulated in Gavin Stamp’s comments above. Cockerell would
also strengthen links between the public museum and the country house by
staging exhibitions including works borrowed from the Royal Collection and
Chatsworth.
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|
Interior
of Fitzwilliam showing pictures with furniture.
|
 |
|
Interior
of National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh, Dutch pictures against country
house red.
|
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|
View of NT
Beningbrough Hall, Yorkshire.
|
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| John Joseph and John Joseph Bouttats, The North Front of Beningbrough Hall, 1751, Oil on canvas, 122 x 178 cm. |
Between the Modern Museum & the Country
House.
A number of directors
and curators like Timothy Clifford, as mentioned above, were interested in
working with designers in order to change the viewing situation in the major
museums. In his changes at the National Gallery of Scotland, Clifford was
supported by the Chairman of Trustees, Jacob Rothschild who was interested in
the design of galleries. Significantly, Rothschild was also friends with David
Milnaric an interior decorator responsible for the refurbishment of
Beningbrough Hall, Yorkshire, NT property, though not blessed with many
paintings. A CSS says, this interest in
bringing country house design into the museum coincided with the vast Treasures
Houses of Britain, an exhibition staged in Washington in 1986, mentioned above. What is more, Milnaric had a taste for
elegant, silk fabrics which was objected by McGregor who saw the design of the
National Gallery in Edinburgh as consistent with “the picture-owning classes,”
though to this occasional visitor to the Edinburgh NG, the red conveys equally institutional
drabness as country house privilege. While not advocating brutalism in
architecture and design, McGregor insisted on something more democratic and
austere in the interests of conveying art directly to the museum-going public
without the frills of ornate design obstructing the view. This debate about whether
pictures should be shown amongst “clutter” rages today in the higher echelons
of the National Trust spilling over into the popular press.
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| Charles West Cope, R.A. The Council of the Royal Academy selecting Pictures for the Exhibition, 1876, oil on canvas, R.A., London. |
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| Red Drawing Room, Belton House. |
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| William Powell Frith, A Private View at the Royal Academy, 1881, oil on canvas, Private Collection. |
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|
'The
Advantages of the Practice of 'Athletic Exercises' by Young Painters, as
recommended by a Great Critic', Punch cartoon, 25th May, 1861.
|
Anatomy of a Country House Collection: Belton
House
Style- “Olden-Time”
(Carolean style) 16th century
Families- Brownlow
& Cust
Given to the NT in
1984
Belton House Owners.
·
Sir John
Brownlow I (1594–1679) Bequeathed Belton to his great-nephew John Brownlow II.
·
Sir John
Brownlow II (1659–1697). Builder of Belton House
·
Sir
William Brownlow (1665–1702). Brother of Sir John Brownlow II, permitted his
widowed sister-in-law Alice to retain Belton.
·
Sir John
Brownlow III (1690–1754). Created Viscount Tyrconnel in 1718. Nephew and
son-in-law of Sir John Brownlow II.
·
Sir John
Cust, 3rd Baronet (1718–1770). Speaker of the House of Commons and nephew of
Tyrconnel.
·
Sir
Brownlow Cust (1744–1807). Created Baron Brownlow in 1776. Son of Sir John
Cust.
·
John, 2nd
Baron Brownlow (1779–1853). Created 1st Earl Brownlow in 1815. Son of Sir
Brownlow Cust.
·
John
Egerton-Cust, 2nd Earl Brownlow (1842–1867) Grandson of John, 2nd Baron
Brownlow.
·
Adelbert,
3rd (and last) Earl Brownlow (1844–1921). Brother of John, 2nd Earl Brownlow.
·
Adelbert
Salusbury Cockayne Cust, 5th Baron Brownlow (1867–1927). Second cousin of
Adelbert, 3rd Earl Brownlow.
·
Peregrine
Cust, 6th Baron Brownlow (1899–1978). Son of the 5th Baron Brownlow.
·
Edward
Cust, 7th Baron Brownlow (born 1936). Son of the 6th Baron Brownlow.
·
The National
Trust (1984 onwards).
The house at Belton is
considered to be the epitome of good, Carolean architecture, i.e
seventeenth-century. Its history beings with the Brownlow family, a dynasty of
lawyers who began acquiring property in the Belton area from about 1598. In
1609 they acquired the reversion of the manor from the Pakenham family who sold
the manor house to Sir John Brownlow in 1619. He became attached to two of his
more distant blood relations: a great-nephew, also called John Brownlow, and a
great-niece, Alice Sherard. The two cousins married each other in 1676 when
both were aged 16; three years later, the couple inherited the Brownlow estates
from their great-uncle together with an income of £9,000 per annum (about £ 1.2
million in present day terms) and £20,000 in cash (equivalent to about £ 2.67
million now). Belton is faced with the local “ancaster stone” with lighter
ashlar from Ketton. It is designed according to the Elizabethan H- shaped plan
which placed rooms back
to back, creating a house two rooms deep- the architectural term for this is
double-pile. This also allowed rooms to be not just better lit and heated but
also better accessed and related to each other, and with the greatest advantage
of all—greater privacy. Belton does not follow the conventional design of an enfilade
of state rooms, though it does have a large saloon at its centre in which are
hung portraits of John and Alice. The reason for this architectural reticence
may be class: the Brownlows were gentry, not aristocracy. Nevertheless, Belton
was favoured with a visit from King William III 1695 where the monarch occupied
“the best Bedchamber.”
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| View of Belton House. |
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| Att to Gerard Soest, Sir John Brownlow (1594–1679), 1st Bt of Belton, 'Old Sir John', 1644, oil on canvas, 68 x 60 cm, NT, Belton House. |
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| Saloon, Belton House. |
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| John Riley and John Closterman, Sir John Brownlow (1659–1697), 3rd Bt, 'Young Sir John', c. 1685, Oil on canvas, 250 x 152 cm, Saloon, Belton House. |
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| John Riley and John Closterman, Alice Sherard (1659–1721), Lady Brownlow, c. 1685, Oil on canvas, 250 x 152 cm, Saloon, Belton House. |
The Belton Picture Collection in Context.
“Today country
houses are still filled with treasures, they continue to display an abundance
of precious objects, and often the narratives around them are more developed.
But at the same time audiences seek other ways of understanding the country
house, and art histories have yielded to social histories. The ‘treasure house’
has yielded to the ‘story house’, with visitors displaying a boundless appetite
for information regarding the lives and activities of the occupants of owners
and estates.”[7]
The first thing that
strikes one when encountering this collection is how nearly ¾ of it is
comprised of paintings by English artists. Though one would expect to see a
fair share of English art in country houses, nearly 200 out of 262 is quite
substantial. After the English, way down the list comes the Italians with about
39, though their number is boosted by the inclusion of 16 pictures by the same
artist, the neo-classicist Biagio Rebecca (1731-1808). Next comes the Dutch
with about 19, but though this is meagre compared to the amplitude of the
English holdings, it is apparent that this school has helped to give Belton
something of its character. There is the Hondecoeter Room named after the Dutch
bird painter which would be one of the main reasons for visiting the collection.
The Flemish are in fourth place with about 13 paintings and behind them in
single figures schools such Sweden, France, and Germany. Though the French
contribution is very small, it includes a fine Boucher, surely one of the best
in an English country house. Intriguingly, there seems to be no painting by a
Spanish artist in the entire collection, a puzzling omission. Unsurprisingly, the artist most represented in
the collection is Biagio Rebecca though again, the rule of inverse
significance: all of these mythological panels are mediocre treatments of
mythological deities and figures, arguably, one could happily remove them
without damaging the collection. Next comes 33 pictures by unidentified English
painters; this is a common factor to most country house collections. Sir
Godfrey Kneller has no less than 17 pictures in this collection, though some
are copies. After this the artists most present are Enoch Seeman the Younger,
Gerard Soest, John Riley, Joshua Reynolds, Michael Dahl I, Willem Wissing (all
six). Lastly John Closterman with five, though a number of these are
collaborations with Riley. Though there
are some “names” such as Reynolds, Rosa, Titian, Fra Bartolomeo, Rembrandt,
most of these are copies. Unlike museums where the history of the institution
is not explicitly relayed through the hangings and display, a country house collection
needs to show the historical narrative, families, marriages, etc via the
portraits. The NT display at Belton successfully blends the history of the
owners of the house (see above) “present” in their portraits arranged in
various rooms like the Saloon and the Tyrconnel Room with other more museum-
like arrangements. For example, the Red
Drawing Room has been made into something of a picture cabinet, almost impossible
to achieve in a public museum, of small and medium size Italianate, Dutch and
English pictures ranging from Holy Families to images of shipping all hung in
bays which act as a “meta” frame to the actual pictures. As a colour contrast
to the country house red of the Drawing Room, there is the tan brown and white
of the main staircase which works well with the nineteenth-century portraits of
the likes of Lord Leighton and Frank Salisbury. In this section an attempt has
been made to interweave the “story house” with an art history methodology of
explaining the pictures. Wether these two approaches can complement each other,
or wether they remain staunch enemies, is just one of the issues that lie at
the heart of how country house art collections should be presented to the
visiting public.
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| Main staircase, Belton House. |
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| Frederick Lord Leighton, Lady Adelaide Chetwynd-Talbot (1844–1917), Countess Brownlow, c. 1879, oil on canvas, Oil on canvas, 244 x 166 cm, main staircase, Belton House. |
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| Frank O. Salisbury, Lady Adelaide Chetwynd-Talbot (1844–1917), Countess Brownlow, 1908, Oil on canvas, 205 x 166 cm, main staircase, Belton House. |
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| Melchior de Hondecoeter, View of a Park with Swans and Ducks, 1670-80, Oil on canvas, 362 x 294 cm, Belton House. |
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| Abraham Govaerts, A Nymph and Satyr, Oil on panel, 79 x 94 cm, Red Drawing Room, Belton House. |
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| Dutch School, Shipping Scene, 1696, Oil on canvas, 49.5 x 64 cm, Red Drawing Room, Belton House. |
 |
|
François
Boucher, 'La vie champêtre,' 1728, Oil on canvas, 60 x 50 cm, Belton House.
|
Slides.
1) Hall of Lost Houses from the “Destruction of the Country House” exhibition, 1974.
2) Interior of Washington exhibition of Treasure Houses of England.
3) National Gallery, Trafalgar Square, London.
4) Nicholas Penny relaxes in front of country-house red.
5) Elizabeth Frink, Portrait of Michael Jaffé, 1992, bronze, patinated green, ht, 30 cm, (including base), Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.[8]
6) Alec Cobbe, The National Trust's Picture Hanging Committee (Bobby Gore, Sir Brinsley Ford, Professor Michael Jaffé and Tom Helme), Kingston Lacy, 1985, Acrylic on board, 30 x 29 cm, NT, Kingston Lacy.
7) Charles West Cope, R.A. The Council of the Royal Academy selecting Pictures for the Exhibition, 1876, oil on canvas, R.A., London.
8) Joseph Wright of Derby, Portrait of Richard, 7th Viscount Fitzwilliam, 1764, oil on canvas, 74.9 x 62.2 cm, Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.[9]
9) Interior of Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, Venetian paintings against country-house green.
10) Jacopo Palma il Vecchio, Venus and Cupid, c. 1523-24, oil on canvas, Oil on canvas, 118.1 x 208.9 cm, Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.
11) Interior of Fitzwilliam Museum, English pictures against country-house red.
12) Interior of Fitzwilliam showing pictures with furniture.
13) Interior of National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh, Dutch pictures against country house red.
14) View of NT Beningbrough Hall, Yorkshire.
15) John Joseph and John Joseph Bouttats, The North Front of Beningbrough Hall, 1751, Oil on canvas, 122 x 178 cm.
16) William Powell Frith, A Private View at the Royal Academy, 1881, oil on canvas, Private Collection.
17) 'The Advantages of the Practice of 'Athletic Exercises' by Young Painters, as recommended by a Great Critic', Punch cartoon, 25th May, 1861.
18) View of Belton House.
19) North Face of Belton House.
20) English School, View of the South Aspect of Belton House, Lincolnshire, with the House Porter, c. 1720, Oil on canvas, 237 x 313 cm.
21) William Skillman (fl.1660-1685) engraving of Clarendon House (dem. 1683), London, from painting by Johann Spilberg II (1619-1690).
22) Att to Gerard Soest, Sir John Brownlow (1594–1679), 1st Bt of Belton, 'Old Sir John', 1644, oil on canvas, 68 x 60 cm, NT, Belton House.
23) English School, Sir John Brownlow (1659–1697), 3rd Bt, 'Young Sir John' (?), oil on canvas, 73.5 x 61 cm, NT, Belton House.
24) John Riley and John Closterman, Alice Sherard (1659–1721), Lady Brownlow, c. 1685, Oil on canvas, 250 x 152 cm, Saloon, Belton House.
25) Saloon, Belton House.
26) John Riley and John Closterman, Sir John Brownlow (1659–1697), 3rd Bt, 'Young Sir John', c. 1685, Oil on canvas, 250 x 152 cm, Saloon, Belton House.
27) Diagram of piano nobile of Belton House: Key 1: Marble Hall; 2:Great Staircase; 3:Bedchamber, now Blue Room; 4:Sweetmeat closet; 5:Back stairs & east entrance; 6:Chapel Drawing Room; 7:Chapel (double height); 8:Tyrconnel Room; 9:Saloon; 10:Red Drawing Room; 11:Little Parlour (now Tapestry Room); 12:School Room; 13:Closet; 14:Back stairs & west entrance; 15:Service Room (now Breakfast Room); 16:Upper storey of kitchen, (now Hondecoeter Room).
28) Style of William Wissing, William III (1650–1702), Oil on canvas, 73.5 x 62 cm, Belton House.
29) Tyrconnel Room, Belton House.
30) Charles Jervas, Sir John Brownlow (1690–1754), 1st Viscount Tyrconnel, 1730s, Oil on canvas, 244 x 142 cm, Tyrconnel Room, Belton House.
31) Phillipe Mercier, The Belton Conversation Piece, c. 1725-26, Oil on canvas, 65 x 75.5 cm
32) Main staircase, Belton House.
33) Frank O. Salisbury, Lady Adelaide Chetwynd-Talbot (1844–1917), Countess Brownlow, 1908, Oil on canvas, 205 x 166 cm, main staircase, Belton House.
34) Frederick Lord Leighton, Lady Adelaide Chetwynd-Talbot (1844–1917), Countess Brownlow, c. 1879, oil on canvas, Oil on canvas, 244 x 166 cm, main staircase, Belton House.
35) Red Drawing Room, Belton House.
36) Att to Fra Bartolommeo, Madonna & Child, Oil on canvas, 72 x 61 cm, oil on canvas, Red Drawing Room, Belton House.
37) Giuseppe Bartolomeo Chiari, The Adoration of the Magi, after 1682, Oil on canvas, 89 x 79 cm, Red Drawing Room, Belton House.
38) After Rembrandt van Rhyn, 1632, A Portrait of a Jew, Oil on panel, 69 x 59 cm, Red Drawing Room, Belton House.
39) Abraham Govaerts, A Nymph and Satyr, Oil on panel, 79 x 94 cm, Red Drawing Room, Belton House.
40) Dutch School, Shipping Scene, 1696, Oil on canvas, 49.5 x 64 cm, Red Drawing Room, Belton House.
41) François Boucher, 'La vie champêtre,' 1728, Oil on canvas, 60 x 50 cm, Belton House.
42) After Titian, The Penitent Magdalen, late 16th-17th century, Oil on canvas, 92 x 84 cm, Belton House.
43) Hondecoeter Room.
44) Melchior de Hondecoeter, Open Landscape with Poultry and Waterfowl1660-80, Oil on canvas, 362 x 540 cm, Hondecoeter Room, Belton House.
45) Same with Dead Swan by Weenix.
46) Melchior de Hondecoeter, View of a Park with Swans and Ducks, 1670-80, Oil on canvas, 362 x 294 cm, Belton House.
47) Silver in the Hondecoeter Room.
48) Edmund Fairfax-Lucy, Silver Gilt in the Hondecoeter Room, Belton House, Lincolnshire, 1987, Oil on canvas, 45.5 x 66 cm, Belton House.
49) Attributed to Nicolaes Berchem, Figures & Animals, rect acq by Belton House.
[1] About 800 properties were open to the public at the time this
exhibition was held.
[2] Giles Waterfield, “Studying the Country House: The View from the
Academy,” paper given at the Attingham Trust conference, “Looking Ahead: The
Future of the Country House,” Royal Geographical Society, London, 12-13th
Oct, 2012. The Attingham Trust was founded in 1952, and in the words of another
conference participant, Christopher Ridgway, curator at Castle Howard,
“Attingham was not founded with any specific preservation mission in the way
that organizations like SAVE were launched by Marcus Binney in 1975.
Attingham’s main mission in 1952 was to enable curators to ‘become acquainted
with the fabric and contents of British country houses.’”
[3] Martin Davies believed that pictures could “speak” independently of
their surroundings. Davies wanted less “window dressing”, more minimalism and a
philosophy of letting the pictures have free rein. Davies’s successor, the 18th century expert
Michael Levey, would equally strive for clarity, although he would be more
mindful of the public than Davies. Levey wrote a guide to the museum, a
chronological itinerary mapped out for the visitor. After ascending the stairs
to the main entrance, the visitor went into Room 1, dealing with the “Italian
Gothic”, after which they toured a circuit of the building, through the High
Renaissance, the 17th century, the 18th century, until they came to the display
of French Impressionists bringing them back to the front entrance.
[4] Charles Saumarez Smith, “Narratives of Display at the National
Gallery, London” in Art History, Vol. 30, no. 4, 2007, 611-627, 613. As
CSS points out, Hendy was trying to balance a conventional history of art on
the walls with a “modernist aesthetic”, a hang reflecting the times rather than
just the development of national schools.
This director had been influenced by designs made by Italian architects
for the interiors of museums in that country, although some of his ideas like
changes of level were frankly impracticable and would raise disability issues
today. Hendy’s attitude towards hanging also resulted in a debate in the House
of Lords in 1954, where disapproval was expressed at “window dressing” in the
N.G. As CSS speculates, Hendy may have brought American ideas about hanging
back from his tenure at Boston MFA; the tendency in America was to show
masterpieces in isolation. Hendy seems to have been in tune with wariness
towards “past greatness”, presenting the past without compromising the present.
[5] Fitzwilliam Museum founded in 1816, with the bequest to Cambridge
University by Richard, 7th Viscount Fitzwilliam, of his paintings,
works on paper, books and musical material.
[6] Giles Waterfield, “Art
Galleries and the Public: A Survey of Three Centuries,” Art Treasures of
England, 45. Such a dense hang was memorably re-created by Waterfield and
Verdi in this mammoth exhibition at the R.A.
[7] Christopher Ridgway, “Country House Collections: What Do They Mean
Today?” in Attingham conference proceedings.
[8] Art Treasures of England, no. 28. Jaffé was Director of the
Fitzwilliam 1973-90. In 1960 Jaffé persuaded Cambridge to introduce art history
as a subject in its own right.
[9] Art Treasures of England, no. 5. F left 144 paintings most
of them from the Netherlands.
