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ART COLLECTIONS
The history of collecting, like that of patronage, reflects the trend of taste and also shows the relation of art to wealth. The earliest collections were associated with religion and the public treasury, as in the Egyptian tombs of the kings and the sanctuaries at Delphi and Olympia. Private collecting was first fully developed among the Romans. A whole quarter of Rome was devoted to art dealers.
Among the collectors, one of the first and most prominent was Sulia, who numbered among his treasures the 'Hercules' of Lysippus, which had once belonged to Alexander the Great; a golden statue of Apollo stolen from Delphi; and the first recorded collection of antique engraved gems. Julius Caesar also owned six collections of cameos and intaglios; Sallust owned the 'Dying Gaul' and the 'Venus and Cupid', now in the Vatican.
The suppression of private wealth during the Middle Ages restricted collecting and attention was mainly directed towards the embellishment of ecclesiastical institutions by the work of contemporary artists. In Venice, however, where the merchants and bankers were concerned with the financing of the Crusades, objects brought bark by the Crusaders and gifts from Oriental potentates formed the nucleus of the Doges' collections. The Medici in Florence were conspicuous as patrons of contemporary art. But by the time of Lorenzo the Magnificent they were showing equal interest in works of the past. Lorenzo himself formed a distinguished collection of antique gems, cameos, intaglios and marbles. Ghiberti owned among other antique marbles a reclining figure by Polycleitus and some Greek vases. Squarclone, head of the Paduan School, collected on a large scale and actually travelled to Greece bringing back statues and paintings for his pupils to copy. Giulio Romano's house at Mantua was filled with Roman fragments; and Mantegna formed a celebrated collection of classical sculpture.
Among papal collectors of the Renaissance may be mentioned Paul III who owned Byzantine ivories, and Julius II, who with the purchase of the 'Apollo Belvedere' began the collection of antique statuary which made the Vatican famous. Outside Italy, the Habsburgs formed magnificent collections which ultimately became parts of the museums of Dresden, Munich, Vienna and the Prado. Francis I, besides his lavish patronage of living artists, formed the nucleus of the present Bibliotèque Nationale with his collection of Greek, Byzantine and medieval manuscripts, and with his vases, medals, statuettes, drawings, tapestries and sculptures, brought together the core of the national art collections of the Louvre.
The Catalogue of the King's Pictures, 1948, records the growth of the English Royal Collections. The elder son of James I, Prince Henry, left, a number of pictures and bronzes to his brother Charles which formed the basis of Charles' important collections. His greatest acquisition was the purchase of the collection of the Dukes of Mantua which included the nine 'Triumphs of Caesar' by Mantegna. On the advice of the Rubens, Charles bought the cartoons by Raphael now in the Victoria and Albert Museum. The most important private collectors in Charles' reign were George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham and Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel. The lastnamed is chiefly remembered for his collection of antiques, the 'Arundel Marbles', now in the British Museum. In Holland, Rembrandt's collection was of particular interest. He specialized in paintings and drawings of the old masters, antique busts, arms and historic costumes.
The Duke of Marlborough's collection was considered to be one of the finest of the 18th century. When it was dispersed in 1885, the 360 pictures put up for auction included Raphael's 'Ansidei Madonna' and van Dyck's ' Charles I', both now in the National Gallery, and Titian's 'Venus and Adonis', now in the Metropolitan Museum, New York. Horace Walpole is, however, usually instanced as the typical 18th-century collector. He owned Rembrandt's 'Saskia', ' Charles I', ' Henrietta Maria' and 'Archbishop Laud' by van Dyck, Raphael's 'Last Supper' and Michelangelo's 'Rape of Ganymede'. Other notable English collectors were the Duke of Devonshire, the Duke of Bridgewater, the Duke of Northumberland, Earl Temple of Stowe and the Earl of Pembroke at Wilton. Many of their collections were enriched by the sale in 1792-93 of the Orleans Collection, which had been formed in the early years of the century by Philip, Duke of Orleans. Among the painters represented were Titian, Rubens, Veronese, Reni, Poussin, Tintoretto, Correggio and van Dyck. All these great 18th-century collectors preferred 16th- and 17th-century Italian painters and painters like Poussin who worked in an italianate manner.
Of 18th-century amateurs who devoted themselves to the remains of Classical Antiquity, Charles Townley was the most outstanding. His collection consisted of bas-reliefs, sepulchral monuments, inscriptions, cinerary urns, votive altars and statuary. They all came to the British Museum by purchase on Townley's death.
This history of collecting in the 19th and 20th centuries is largely the history of museums. Disrupting changes in the social scale gradually reduced the possibility of the acquisition of great works by old masters on the part of private individuals. Many of the great collections of the previous century were dispersed by sale or made into public museums, until to-day only a few remain in private hands. A growth of national feeling led many collectors -- to mention only Angerstein and Sir George Beaumont -- to bequeath to public institutions the works they had gathered together. Napoleon's vast collections were established in the Louvre as symbols of national, rather than private, prestige.
The English Royal Collections, however, maintained for a time the great tradition of 18th-century collecting. George IV acquired Rembrandt's 'Shipbuilder and his Wife' and 'Portrait of the Artist and Saskia' and van Dyck's ' Charles I in three positions'. Albert, as Prince Consort, bought interesting early Italian, Dutch, Flemish and German masters at a time when these were entirely ignored.
The new race of collectors brought into existence by the Industrial Revolution were conspicuous for their patronage of contemporary art. One or two collectors in the old tradition eventually emerged, among whom may be mentioned Baron Rothschild, Lords Leverhulme, Crawford, Lee of Fareham and Duveen, Sir Walter Burrell and Sir Samuel Courtauld. The last two possessed fine collections of French 19th-century painting.
In America immense private wealth, such as has become rare in Europe, made possible such collections as the Altmann, Stuart Gardiner, Phillips, Mellon, Widener, Pierpoint Morgan and Rockefeller, though these too have now mostly come to form part of public institutions and museums.
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