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The picture collection at Petworth has long been celebrated. Like every great family collection it reflects the tastes of successive generations, and represents a balance between patronage and connoisseurship. In any British collection, what Oliver Millar termed the ‘deposit’ of family portraits and pictures commissioned to record interests of specific members of a family have a dominant role, and at Petworth the portrait collection is indeed of dazzling distinction. That Petworth boasts a collection of altogether exceptional range and diversity is due to the perspicacity of three exceptional owners of the house.
Petworth was granted to Jocelin de Louvain, who married Agnes, heiress of the Percy family, by 1151. It passed to her Percy descendants, who owned great estates in Northumberland and Yorkshire, as well as the honour of Egremont, and later Syon in Middlesex, and Northumberland House in London. Algernon Percy, 10th Earl of Northumberland (1602-1668), who inherited in 1632, was not only a discriminating patron of van Dyck, but also made notable acquisitions from that artist’s collection and that of Charles I’s early mentor, George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham. His acquisitions—none of which is being sold—informed the taste of his successors. By 1671, after the death of his son and successor, Joceline, there were 167 pictures, divided among his various houses. In 1682, the heiress, Elizabeth, Baroness Percy in her own right, married Charles Seymour, 6th Duke of Somerset. He rebuilt Petworth, transforming this into one of the great mansions of the age. He also bought pictures, including the celebrated Claude that remains in the house. He died in 1748, and on the death of his successor two years later the Percy inheritance was divided, Petworth passing to the son of the sixth Duke’s daughter, Charles Wyndham, 2nd Earl of Egremont (1710- 1763). Egremont had a distinguished political career and was evidently keenly interested in pictures, patronizing contemporary artists and buying a considerable number of old masters, many of which were placed at Egremont House in London. In a fifteen year period he bought some 183 pictures: he was equally active as a collector of classical sculpture and patron of the cabinet makers of the day.
The second Earl died in 1763. His son George, now 3rd Earl of Egremont (1751-1837) (fig. 1), was only twelve at the time. The third Earl was to become one of the great patrons of his time, and during his seventy-five year tenure left an indelible mark on Petworth and its collections. He sold Egremont House in 1794, calling in James Christie to sell many of his father’s pictures, but transferring others to Petworth, thus changing the character of the picture hang there. He is of course now best remembered for his understanding patronage of Turner (fig. 2), but he also bought pictures from a large number of other painters, as the visitor to the North Gallery at Petworth can still see. Pictures by Fuseli and Glover represent facets of the third Earl’s patronage. On the death of the third Earl, Petworth passed to his eldest natural son, George Wyndham (1789-1869), who was created Lord Leconfield in 1859. In 1947 Charles, 3rd Lord Leconfield gave the house and park with an endowment to the National Trust. The 3rd Lord Leconfield’s nephew and heir, John Wyndham, offered a large proportion of the contents to the Treasury in lieu of tax payable on his uncle’s death in 1952. In recent years, the historic picture hangs in the house have been successfully recreated incorporating many pictures that remain in the Egremont collection.
PROPERTY OF LORD EGREMONT DL, REMOVED FROM PETWORTH HOUSE (LOTS 22, 23 & 147-155)
Willem van Mieris (Leiden 1662-1747)
An interior with a man consoling a distressed lady, beside an invalid in bed
細節
Willem van Mieris (Leiden 1662-1747)
An interior with a man consoling a distressed lady, beside an invalid in bed
oil on panel
18¾ x 15 1/8 in. (47.4 x 38.2 cm.)
in an early 19th century carved composition frame
An interior with a man consoling a distressed lady, beside an invalid in bed
oil on panel
18¾ x 15 1/8 in. (47.4 x 38.2 cm.)
in an early 19th century carved composition frame
來源
George Wyndham, 3rd Earl of Egremont (1751-1837), at Petworth House, Sussex, by 1837 (Inventory of Paintings, Sculpture and Books at Petworth House, Property of The Late George, 3rd Earl of Egremont) and later at Egremont House, 94 Piccadilly, London, and by descent.
出版
Catalogue of Pictures in Petworth House, Sussex, London, 1856, p. 47, no. 445, where listed as 'Francis Mieris' and hanging in London.
C.H. Collins Baker, Catalogue of the Petworth Collection of pictures in the possession of Lord Leconfield, London, 1920, p. 84, no. 445.
C. Hofstede de Groot, Beschreibendes und kritisches Verzeichnis der Werke der hervorragendsten Holländischen Maler des XVII. Jahrhunderts, X, Stuttgart, 1928, p. 140, no. 144.
C.H. Collins Baker, Catalogue of the Petworth Collection of pictures in the possession of Lord Leconfield, London, 1920, p. 84, no. 445.
C. Hofstede de Groot, Beschreibendes und kritisches Verzeichnis der Werke der hervorragendsten Holländischen Maler des XVII. Jahrhunderts, X, Stuttgart, 1928, p. 140, no. 144.
榮譽呈獻
Freddie De Rougemont
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