The Derby Art Collection
In this episode I am delighted to be talking to two fellow art historians Dr Richard Stephens, Editor of the Walpole Society Journal, and Dr Stephen Lloyd, former Senior Curator of the Scottish National Portrait Gallery and now Curator of the Derby Collection of works of art, library and archive.
Through their intimate knowledge of the art-buying papers of the 10th Earl of Derby from 1723 to 1735, held in the family archives, they describe which paintings he bought, and how and when he purchased them, in vivid detail from the accounts and correspondence with his many art-dealers and agents. These acquisitions were to fill his newly rebuilt Georgian mansion at Knowsley Hall. Stephen then explains some of the techniques he has used to authenticate various studio works to be considered by the hand of a great master-painter. For instance ‘A Portrait of an Unknown Man Wearing Middle-Eastern Dress’ was bought by Lord Stanley, later the 13th Earl from the art dealer John Smith in London in 1820 as being by Rembrandt and Studio. It was later downgraded by the art historian Horst Gerson in 1968 and attributed to Govaert Flinck, a pupil of Rembrandt’s. After scientific research in 2018-19, including dendrochronology (tree-ring analysis) of the panel and public exhibition in Basel and Potsdam, this painting was re-attributed back to Rembrandt and Studio.
Above: Rembrandt and Studio, A Study of the Head of a Man wearing middle-eastern Dress, oil on panel c.1636; image courtesy of the Derby Collection
Richard also describes the most expensive painting bought by the 10th Earl, a small oil on panel painting of ‘Christ and the Woman of Samaria’, purchased for £400 in 1722 from the posthumous auction of the collection of Elihu Yale, a wealthy Welsh colonial merchant who later founded Yale University. Imagine my surprise when I found this very same painting shoved in a brown paper bag behind a cupboard in an attic bedroom that had been locked for 50 years! I doubt I will ever find out why it was hidden there, or by whom. Such are the secrets of the past...... Do listen in to this fascinating conversation.
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