Art collecting as competitive sport

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From a titled lady selling motorbikes to Hitler posing next to a classical athlete, people have had a variety of motives for collecting art

Owning the Past: Why the English Collected Antique Sculpture, 1640–1840 by Ruth Guilding

Over the past few years, several books have been published on the British passion for collecting antique sculpture. So when yet another comes along, my first question is, very naturally: can there be enough new material in this book to justify a further lavishly photographed series of antique sculptures in British country houses? 

In fact, my question isn’t quite the right one, as Ruth Guilding is discussing only England, which is a pity as there are great examples which could illustrate her points in other parts of the UK too. But having said that, my initial scepticism about the potential content drained away as I read the book, which is written from a perspective very different from many others. It’s not only very interesting, it’s also an extremely good read for both specialist and non-specialist alike, and wonderfully free of the modern art-historical jargon that sets my teeth on edge.

The selection of images, from the 18th to the 20th centuries, is just wonderful: both illuminating and entertaining. The first image is a 20th-century period piece, the front cover of a pictorial guide to country houses and gardens from 1961, captioned ‘First-generation country-house visitors get to grips with the Sculpture Gallery at Petworth House...’. The third image (the second and fourth being of antique sculpture in situ), is a photograph of Lady Katie Percy on a motorbike in the entrance hall at Syon House in 2006, promoting her vintage motorcycle company, a modern commercial promotion with social connotations, set within an earlier form of social promotion.

All through the book it is people that are the real subjects, with how, why and when they collected antique sculpture. This doesn’t in any way detract from the importance of what they collected, it simply makes us think about the context in which it all happened, and how the sculptures have been used (or neglected) by those collectors and their descendants. So we see Beatrice, Countess of Pembroke, photographed in her peeress’ robes by Cecil Beaton   in the Sculpture Cloister at Wilton House in 1934, and Adolf Hitler posing next to a Discobolus sculpture in 1938. Guilding brings the whole subject down to earth, too, showing the practical details of looking after such collections. An antique bust lies on the ground after a gale at Chatsworth, and an array of antique sculpture in Castle Howard – where the gods Bacchus and Ceres decorate a redundant buffet niche – is fronted by two very un-classical cleaners in modern overalls, household goddesses of a kind, leaning on their mops with their plastic buckets beside them.  

The pursuit of antique sculpture is not an edifying story. It was a competitive sport, with a great deal of snobbery and rivalry, not to mention obsession and jealousy. And it took over lives to an extraordinary degree. Sir Richard Worsley published his collection in his two-volume Museum Worsleyanum, ‘probably the largest and most costly books to be issued by a private collector solely to publicize his own collection’ (his motive partly to enhance his name, tainted by past scandal). He then moved his collection to the family seat at Appuldurcombe on the Isle of Wight, though he actually lived in a nearby cottage, set among small classical temples and a vineyard. 

Guilding points out that even today the ownership and exhibition of such objects carries social weight, and can add an aura of culture and status to an individual’s standing. In 2002 the Barberini (Newby) Venus, formerly the showpiece of the Gallery at Newby Hall, left for Qatar; a facsimile now stands in its place.

All the usual collectors of the 18th and early 19th centuries are here: Blundell and Coke, Egremont   and Townley. They appear in commissioned images, and also in the cruel and lascivious lampoons of the day, often a contrast to later photographs that show owners less taken up with such enthusiasm, and with less cluttered displays.

Today all the visitors at least get to see it all, for in the past some of the sculptures were for male visitors only to see, nakedness and priapic works being kept away from the delicate eyes and sensibilities of their womenfolk.

The theme throughout is men and their motives in relation to antique sculpture, and each chapter looks at these in great detail (this is neither a chronological nor house by house guide).  It brings us right up to date with the mass-production of antique sculptures available in our garden centres and Italian restaurants today. The image by Thomas Rowlandson  entitled A Statuary Yard, showing customers contemplating purchase from an array of copies of classical sculptures in a bosky setting, is a scene that could belong to our own time, just as much as to the eighteenth century.

Owning the Past: Why the English Collected Antique Sculpture, 1640–1840  by Ruth Guildingis published byYale University Press, 2014.  410 pp. 100 colour and 200 mono illus. ISBN 978-0-300-20819-1