DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61252#0048
4
THE QUEEN’S GALLERY.
George IV. began to form his collection about the year
1802, and was chiefly guided by the advice and judgment
of Sir Charles Long, afterwards Lord Farnborough, an
accomplished man, whose taste for art, and intimacy with
the King, then Prince of Wales, rendered him a very fit
person to carry the royal wishes into execution. The
importation of the Orleans gallery had diffused a feeling-
or, it may be, a fashion—for the higher specimens of the
Italian schools, but under the auspices of George IV. the
tide set in an opposite direction.
In the year 1812, the very select gallery of Flemish
and Dutch pictures collected by Sir Francis Baring, was
transferred by purchase to the Prince Regent. Sir
Francis Baring had purchased the best pictures from the
collections of M. Geldermeester of Amsterdam (sold in
1800), and that of the Countess of Holderness* (sold in
1802), and, except the Hope gallery, there was nothing
at that time to compare with it in England. I have
heard that Mr. Seguier, valued this collection at eighty
thousand pounds; but the exact sum paid for it I do
not know — certainly much less.f Before and since that
time, the known predilection of the monarch for works
of the Dutch school, the high, and what Dr. Waagen
terms (rather equivocally) the “ princely” prices paid
for this class of pictures, and which have since been kept
up by fashion and the picture dealers, have almost emptied
the celebrated cabinets of Holland. The most valuable
masterpieces once in the collections of Braamcamp, van
Slingelandt, Geldermeester, Smeth van Alpen, Grefiier
Fagel, the Due de Choiseul, the Due de Praslin, Pou-
* She was a Dutchwoman by birth, and it appears that several of
her finest pictures had descended to her as heir-looms.
f 24,000Z. is the sum which has been stated to me, on what I con-
sider high authority.
THE QUEEN’S GALLERY.
George IV. began to form his collection about the year
1802, and was chiefly guided by the advice and judgment
of Sir Charles Long, afterwards Lord Farnborough, an
accomplished man, whose taste for art, and intimacy with
the King, then Prince of Wales, rendered him a very fit
person to carry the royal wishes into execution. The
importation of the Orleans gallery had diffused a feeling-
or, it may be, a fashion—for the higher specimens of the
Italian schools, but under the auspices of George IV. the
tide set in an opposite direction.
In the year 1812, the very select gallery of Flemish
and Dutch pictures collected by Sir Francis Baring, was
transferred by purchase to the Prince Regent. Sir
Francis Baring had purchased the best pictures from the
collections of M. Geldermeester of Amsterdam (sold in
1800), and that of the Countess of Holderness* (sold in
1802), and, except the Hope gallery, there was nothing
at that time to compare with it in England. I have
heard that Mr. Seguier, valued this collection at eighty
thousand pounds; but the exact sum paid for it I do
not know — certainly much less.f Before and since that
time, the known predilection of the monarch for works
of the Dutch school, the high, and what Dr. Waagen
terms (rather equivocally) the “ princely” prices paid
for this class of pictures, and which have since been kept
up by fashion and the picture dealers, have almost emptied
the celebrated cabinets of Holland. The most valuable
masterpieces once in the collections of Braamcamp, van
Slingelandt, Geldermeester, Smeth van Alpen, Grefiier
Fagel, the Due de Choiseul, the Due de Praslin, Pou-
* She was a Dutchwoman by birth, and it appears that several of
her finest pictures had descended to her as heir-looms.
f 24,000Z. is the sum which has been stated to me, on what I con-
sider high authority.