DOI issue:
Część III. Badania atrybucyjne i technologiczne nad dawnym malarstwem i rysunkiem / Part III. Attribution and Technological Research on Old Master Paintings and Drawings
DOI article:Love, David: Waluta koneserów - o historii dwóch wersji Świętej Rodziny zé świętym Janem Chrzcicielem i świętą Katarzyną Aleksandryjską Gianfrancesca Penniego
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.45362#0286
David Love The Currency of Connoisseurs: The History of Two Versions of The Holy Family...
285
The Boston Version: Pleasurable Consumption
The documented history of the Boston version is much briefer but still revealing. In a Scottish
collection in the nineteenth century, it moved to Boston, Massachusetts in the twentieth. There
it was acquired by the Childs Gallery from an unidentified local collector, probably around
1955, bearing two labels.69 One records framing by a Boston firm, Foster Brothers, at some
time between 1902 and 1942. The other marks the ownership of Horatio Granville Murray
Stewart (1834-1904) of Broughton and Cally (fig. 12).70 He was the sole heir to two Scottish
families descended from the Earls of Allandale and the Earls of Galloway, and inherited estates
on the coast of Galloway in south-west Scotland described fifty years earlier as the largest of
any commoner in Scotland, as well as over 30,000 acres in nearby County Donegal, Ireland.
His story is another lesson in the perils of over-enthusiastic consumption, or the pleas-
ures of short-termism. Most of his land, accumulated over more than two centuries, came
from Alexander Murray of Broughton, a distant relative whose picture collecting, building,
and travelling ran him so deeply into debt that all his personal property had to be sold when
he died childless in 1846, and the Irish estate in 1855. Murray Stewart seems to have copied
him, over-spending his considerable income against the sale of assets after his death. Again
childless, he amassed a large but uncatalogued picture collection and expensive decorative
art, travelled widely like the Potockis, bought the neighbouring Rusko estate in 1874 f°r his
wife, and died with debts equivalent to half his total assets. His English wife was “staunchly
episcopalian” (a minority in presbyterian Scotland), and together they built a large private
chapel with chaplain and choir school, reportedly devoting some fifteen years to its design.
At its consecration in 1877, an elaborately carved ceiling and “richly gilded and painted” texts
carved into the walls are mentioned by the local newspaper, but no pictures. Devotional use
of such an altarpiece might have been too papist for them, or something they preferred not
to publicise, or they may simply have acquired it later. It was probably sold in 1904 during the
piecemeal disposal of nearly all of Murray Stewart’s possessions, or possibly after his wife’s
death in 1919 when the items most personal to her were dispersed.71
69 I am grateful to Roger Howlett, Childs Gallery, Boston for his record of the labels and discussion of
the Boston history of the painting.
70 I am grateful to David Devereux, formerly of The Stewartry Museum (Dumfries and Galloway Council),
Kirkcudbright, Scotland, particularly for verifying that the painting was not in the 184.6 auction of Alexander
Murray’s effects (and therefore was probably first acquired by Murray Stewart), and to Dr David Steel, historian of
the Gatehouse of Fleet area, for his expert guidance to the literature on Murray Stewart and his family.
71 J.E. Russell, Gatehouse and District, 2 vols (Dumfries, 2003), vol. 1, pp. 90-102,278.
285
The Boston Version: Pleasurable Consumption
The documented history of the Boston version is much briefer but still revealing. In a Scottish
collection in the nineteenth century, it moved to Boston, Massachusetts in the twentieth. There
it was acquired by the Childs Gallery from an unidentified local collector, probably around
1955, bearing two labels.69 One records framing by a Boston firm, Foster Brothers, at some
time between 1902 and 1942. The other marks the ownership of Horatio Granville Murray
Stewart (1834-1904) of Broughton and Cally (fig. 12).70 He was the sole heir to two Scottish
families descended from the Earls of Allandale and the Earls of Galloway, and inherited estates
on the coast of Galloway in south-west Scotland described fifty years earlier as the largest of
any commoner in Scotland, as well as over 30,000 acres in nearby County Donegal, Ireland.
His story is another lesson in the perils of over-enthusiastic consumption, or the pleas-
ures of short-termism. Most of his land, accumulated over more than two centuries, came
from Alexander Murray of Broughton, a distant relative whose picture collecting, building,
and travelling ran him so deeply into debt that all his personal property had to be sold when
he died childless in 1846, and the Irish estate in 1855. Murray Stewart seems to have copied
him, over-spending his considerable income against the sale of assets after his death. Again
childless, he amassed a large but uncatalogued picture collection and expensive decorative
art, travelled widely like the Potockis, bought the neighbouring Rusko estate in 1874 f°r his
wife, and died with debts equivalent to half his total assets. His English wife was “staunchly
episcopalian” (a minority in presbyterian Scotland), and together they built a large private
chapel with chaplain and choir school, reportedly devoting some fifteen years to its design.
At its consecration in 1877, an elaborately carved ceiling and “richly gilded and painted” texts
carved into the walls are mentioned by the local newspaper, but no pictures. Devotional use
of such an altarpiece might have been too papist for them, or something they preferred not
to publicise, or they may simply have acquired it later. It was probably sold in 1904 during the
piecemeal disposal of nearly all of Murray Stewart’s possessions, or possibly after his wife’s
death in 1919 when the items most personal to her were dispersed.71
69 I am grateful to Roger Howlett, Childs Gallery, Boston for his record of the labels and discussion of
the Boston history of the painting.
70 I am grateful to David Devereux, formerly of The Stewartry Museum (Dumfries and Galloway Council),
Kirkcudbright, Scotland, particularly for verifying that the painting was not in the 184.6 auction of Alexander
Murray’s effects (and therefore was probably first acquired by Murray Stewart), and to Dr David Steel, historian of
the Gatehouse of Fleet area, for his expert guidance to the literature on Murray Stewart and his family.
71 J.E. Russell, Gatehouse and District, 2 vols (Dumfries, 2003), vol. 1, pp. 90-102,278.