How the British gained (and lost) their art collections

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The British as Art Collectors: From the Tudors to the Present

By James Stourton and Charles Sebag-Montefiore

I wish this book had been available when I started my art historical studies, for it provides such a splendid account of an important aspect of the British relationship to art. But whether you are an art historian, or someone who simply wants to know the ‘how, why and when’ of Britain’s great collections, this publication provides as full a survey as possible within the scope of a single book.  

And it couldn’t have been written by two more suitable authors, for their combined expertise in commerce and erudition would be hard to match: James Stourton, chairman of Sotheby’s UK, already author of Art Collectors of Our Time (Scala: 2007), and Charles Sebag-Montefiore, a financier whose celebrated library of art-collection catalogues served as the basis for much of this study.

The primary subject is the people who did the collecting, which is what makes the account so fascinating. Royalty predominates in the early chapters, with the rapacious Henry VIII amassing art in the service of the crown and building up a truly astonishing collection ‘with an emphasis on luxury goods and showy bombast’. Later royalty tended to collect in inverse proportion to their ability to rule, and their popularity, notably Charles I and George IV. George III collected more modestly, but more enduringly. But most of the collectors here are not monarchs, and British history means that our national galleries, themselves prompted into existence by individuals or groups of like-minded enthusiasts, are not related to the royal collections, a situation which differs from many other  European countries.

Particularly important to British collecting was its ‘clubability’, with the influence of the Society of Dilettanti in the 18th century (and later, that of the British Institution). The shared experience of the Grand Tour was also particularly important, for this cultural phenomenon affected large numbers of rich young men who travelled the continent for up to three or four years, experiencing a unique form of education that included the purchase of art and antiquities for the family seat as well as the acquisition of social polish and taste.

There was often competition in collecting, and the authors describe several examples of would-be collectors vying for the same painting. And there were lean times and bonanza opportunities, especially during the Napoleonic wars and their aftermath.

Some collectors perhaps thought too little about the future of their treasures. Both Charles I and Sir Robert Walpole built up stupendous collections that were later dispersed, much of Walpole’s being purchased by Catherine the Great of Russia (and is now in the Hermitage, St Petersburg).

Taste changes, and the British interest in Italian art moved from Rome in the 18th century to Florence in the 19th, a time when the collecting of Spanish art was begun by ‘a small band of enthusiasts producing important results’.

The 19th century also saw the creation of many public museums and galleries, but these too had their collecting priorities determined by individuals and fashions. After the Second World War, state patronage and collecting developed dramatically, with increasing numbers of art works commissioned directly from artists specifically for public collections. 

London features a great deal in this book, from its development as a centre of the art trade in the 18th century, to the foreign art collectors who made London their home in the 1980s owing to ‘benign fiscal conditions’.  The account concludes with the most recent collectors, who still have the power to form taste and followers. What, one wonders, would Henry VIII make of the collections of Andrew Lloyd Webber or Charles Saatchi?

The British as Art Collectors: From the Tudors to the Present  by James Stourton & Charles Sebag-Montefiore is published by Scala 2012. 352pp.  383colour illus. ISBN-13:978-1857597493