Jameson, Anna: Companion to the most celebrated private galleries of art in London: containing accurate catalogues, arranged alphabetically, for immediate reference, each preceded by an historical & critical introduction, with a prefactory essay on art, artists, collectors & connoisseurs (London: Saunders and Otley, 1844)

INTRODUCTION.

Pictures are for use, for solace, for ornament, for parade;
—as invested wealth, as an appendage of rank. Some
people love pictures as they love friends; some, as they
love music; some, as they love money. And the col-
lectors of pictures take rank accordingly. There are
those who collect them for instruction, as a student collects
grammars, dictionaries, and commentaries;—these are
artists ; such were the collections of Rubens, of Sir Peter
Lely, of the President West, of Lawrence, of Sir Joshua
Reynolds. There are those who collect pictures around
them as a king assembles his court—as significant of
state, as subservient to ornament or pride; such were
Buckingham and Talleyrand. There are those who col-
lect pictures as a man speculates in the funds ;—picture-
fanciers, like bird-fanciers, or flower-fanciers — amateur
picture-dealers, who buy, sell, exchange, bargain; with
whom a glorious Cuyp represents 800Z. sterling, and a
celebrated Claude is 30001. securely invested—safe as in a
bank; and his is not the right spirit, surely. Lastly, there
are those who collect pictures for love, for companionship,
for communion; to whom each picture, well-chosen at first,
unfolds new beauties—becomes dearer every day; such a
one was Sir George Beaumont—such a one is Mr. Rogers.
To select a cabinet of pictures which, within a small
space, shall include what is at once beautiful, valuable, and
rare, is a matter of time as well as of taste. It cannot be
done easily—it cannot be done in a hurry. It requires a