The Pictures at Polesden Lacey Billiard Room Smoking Gun Room Room Tea Room Picture Corridor West Courtyard Saloon Picture Corridor South Picture Corridor East Central Dining Room Hall Library Blue Cloak Room Entrance Hall Study Areas not open to visitors The Pictures at Polesden Lacey Contents Introduction 3 The Pictures 4 Dining Room 4 Picture Corridor (West) 7 Picture Corridor (South) 11 Picture Corridor (East) 23 Billiard Room 26 Tea Room 28 Saloon 29 Library 30 Study Lobby 31 Balcony 31 Portico Bedroom 32 2 Below Paintings in the South corridor at Polesden Lacey 3 Introduction The picture collection at Polesden Lacey was This taste for portraiture also informed the created by two remarkable individuals – the significant Dutch pictures she added to her self-made brewing magnate William McEwan father’s collection, along with some important MP (1827–1913), and the heir to his fortune, landscapes of the same school. Although her eye the redoubtable hostess Margaret Greville DBE for Dutch art is sometimes held in lower regard (1863–1942). The exact relationship between than McEwan’s, the acquisition of Frans van this pair is not known although it is likely that Mieris’s virtuoso self-portrait is attributed to her. McEwan, who adopted Margaret after his marriage to her mother, was in fact her biological Like her father, Mrs Greville relied on art dealers father. Their taste in art is strongly expressed for guidance. However, she also drew on the at Polesden Lacey, which McEwan bought for expertise of Tancred Borenius of University his daughter as a venue for entertaining, and College London, reflecting the increasing demonstrates their delight in exquisite Old reliance of top-end collectors on the advice of Master paintings. The presence of so many academic art historians. His influence is strongly exceptional, albeit relatively small, pictures in felt in the important series of Italian medieval this luxurious country house continues to and renaissance religious works, which were produce a distinctly select, intimate and acquired throughout the 1930s and now hang inviting impression. in the South corridor. Another new element Mrs Greville introduced to the collection were The patriotism that guided McEwan’s 16th-century Flemish, German and French philanthropic activities in his native Scotland portraits. Corneille de Lyon’s courtly likenesses is reflected in some of his choices. The billiard seem to have been held in especially fond room is a showcase of the works he acquired regard, resulting in four acquisitions of pictures by contemporary Scottish artists. In a different by, or attributed to, this particular master. vein, his two Raeburns reflect his interest in the leading Edinburgh portraitist of his grandparents’ Mrs Greville, who used her fortune and generation. Of greatest note, however, are connections to entertain princes, plutocrats and the 17th-century Dutch and Flemish scenes of politicians in great style at Polesden Lacey and everyday life that he began to acquire in earnest in her townhouse on Charles Street, Mayfair, during his semi-retirement from business. These let it be known that while most ‘people leave paintings, which include the beautiful ter Borch their money to the poor, I intend to leave mine and de Hooch, are of the highest merit and to the rich.’ Ever the contrarian, however, the remain the cornerstone of the collection. The philanthropic streak she inherited from McEwan aptness of the tavern-setting in some of his along with her fortune seems to have prevailed, best acquisitions, notably those by Teniers and and the painting collection exists at the heart of Adriaen van Ostade, cannot have been lost on her legacy. The treasures of Polesden Lacey were McEwan, his daughter, or their guests. consolidated with those from Charles Street after Mrs Greville left her estate to the National Trust In certain respects, Mrs Greville’s acquisitions in memory of her father. Her wish was ‘to form a built upon the strengths of her father’s collection. Picture and Art Gallery in a suitable part or parts Once she had come into her inheritance, she of the house’, that should be ‘open to the public bought two further Raeburns (one of them the at all times and … enjoyed by the largest number most expensive picture she ever acquired) and of people’. complemented them with the ensemble of British portraits, which now hangs in the dining-room. John Chu 4 The Pictures at Polesden Lacey The Pictures The Dining Room Jonathan Richardson the Elder (1665–1745) Self-portrait, c.1728 NT1246443 Richardson was one of England’s most successful portraitists and art theorists when he painted this likeness of himself in about 1728. He is particularly known for a series of self-portraits made in the decade subsequent to his retirement from professional life. This painting dates to the very beginning of that period and shows him in a confident mood, ready to face the public. Unconventionally for an 18th-century portrait in this format, he wears his hat on his head rather than under his arm, as if stepping into the outside world. Mrs Greville bought the picture in 1916 for £200 and it was one of her very first acquisitions. Jacob Huysmans (C.1633–96) An Unknown Woman, 1660s NT1246446 The identity of this sitter is unknown although it may be significant that Huysmans, a Flemish painter in Restoration England, was particularly favoured by Queen Catherine of Braganza and her Catholic courtiers. She gestures to a sculpture of the infant god Bacchus to indicate hopes of matrimony, or perhaps marital fecundity. Benjamin Constant (1845–1902) The Rt Hon. William McEwan (1827–1913), 1900 NT1246445 According to Mrs Greville, this ‘striking likeness’ of her beloved father was the result of six sittings at the Savoy hotel and cost £1,200. Constant, who was enjoying significant success in both London and Paris when the portrait was made in 1900, also attracted the patronage of Queen Victoria, the Prince of Wales, and Pope Leo XIII. Mrs Greville nonetheless claimed that the artist regarded the work as his masterpiece, or ‘chef d’oeuvre’. The Pictures 5 Studio of Sir Peter Lely (1618–80) Frances Teresa Stuart, Duchess of Richmond (1647–1702), c.1670 NT1246444 One of the great beauties of the 17th century. In her younger days, as maid of honour to the exiled Queen Henrietta Maria and then to Catherine of Braganza at the Restoration court, both Louis XIV of France and Charles II of England had tried to make Frances his mistress. Having overcome these amorous attentions and a bout of smallpox, she appears here in triumph as the wife of Charles Stuart, third Duke of Richmond with whom she had eloped in 1667 much to the King’s chagrin. This was painted by Lely’s assistants after the original portrait, now at Goodwood House in Sussex. Sir Henry Raeburn (1756–1823) Isabella Simpson, c.1803–5 NT1246447 Second wife of William Simpson (1742–1808), a director of the Royal Bank of Scotland. The warm, low light suggests a pause during an evening walk and the sitter’s affinity with nature. A pendant portrait of William by Raeburn remains in the possession of his descendants. Purchased by McEwan for £2,500 in 1869, it was the first of four pictures by this important Scottish artist to enter the collection. Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723–92) Nymph and Piping Boy, c.1785–6 NT1246450 Based on erotic Venetian renaissance and French rococo models, this picture is one of several slightly different versions of this composition by Reynolds. Rarely content merely to repeat a pictorial idea, the artist incorporated small but significant modifications into each reprisal of the subject. This restlessness extended to his experimental approach to the physical make-up of his pictures, which has resulted here in severe cracking. Mrs Greville, like other collectors of her day, was prepared to overlook this disfigurement for the sake of possessing an original Reynolds, paying the large sum of £7,410 for this painting in 1917. Sir Henry Raeburn (1756–1823) George (d.1809) and Maria Stewart (d.1846), c.1800–5 NT1246449 Children of Dugald Stewart of Catrine (1753–1828), Professor of Moral Philosophy at Edinburgh University, and Helen Carnstoun (d.1838). The tender moral sensibility of these philosophers’ children is conveyed by the way George restrains a hound as it lunges for the rabbit sheltering in Maria’s arms. Bought for £5,500 by Mrs Greville in 1919. 6 The Pictures at Polesden Lacey Francesco Bartolozzi (1727–1815) Hannah Anne Gore, Countess Cowper (c.1758–1826), 1798 NT1245837 Daughter of the Lincolnshire landowner, Charles Gore of Horkstow, she married the 3rd Earl Cowper, George Nassau. Published in 1798, this is a coloured stippled engraving after a portrait dating to about 1789, painted either by William Hamilton (1751–1801) or Hugh Douglas Hamilton (c.1740–1808). Sir Thomas Lawrence (1769–1830) The Masters Pattisson, 1811–17 NT1246452 Sons of W.H. Pattisson of Witham, Essex. Lawrence began to paint this portrait of William Henry Ebenezer (1801–32) and his brother Jacob Howell (1803–74) in 1811, although it was not completed until 1817 when it was exhibited at the Royal Academy and admired for the ‘sportive play’ of its brushwork. The wild setting refers to the boys’ feeling for nature, as does the integration of the donkey into the group, which the artist asked Mrs Pattisson to send to his London studio especially. On the picture’s completion, the treatment of the faces was felt to ‘bespeak gentle dispositions and minds of a high order’. Mrs Greville paid £12,000 for the piece in 1918. Sir Henry Raeburn (1756–1823) Sir William Macleod Bannatyne (1743–1833), c.1800–5 NT1246451 Scottish judge, knighted in 1823, he was also a founder of the Highland Society and the Bannatyne Club.