Houghton Revisited: The Walpole Masterpieces from Catherine the Great’s Hermitage

Houghton Revisited: The Walpole Masterpieces from Catherine the Great’s Hermitage

The magnificent art collection of Great Britain’s first Prime Minister, Sir Robert Walpole, sold to Catherine the Great to adorn the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, will be reassembled in its spectacular original setting of Houghton Hall for the first time in over 230 years. Houghton Revisited runs from 17 May – 29 September 2013, and is a unique opportunity to view one of the most famous art collections of 18th century in Europe. The display will include paintings from the English, French, Italian, Flemish and Spanish schools.

The exhibition is devoted to 250th anniversary of the Hermitage Museum to be celebrated in 2014. The show includes more than 40 paintings from collection of the State Hermitage Museum as well as other museums of Russia; Victoria and Albert Museum, London; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, The National Gallery, Washington, D.C.

Sir Robert Walpole’s collection was one of the most famous in 18th century England. The sale of 204 works from Houghton Hall, his Norfolk estate, by his grandson, the 3rd Earl of Orford, in 1778-1779 was attended by great secrecy. When the proposed sale became known it generated heated public debate led by John Wilkes (1727-1797), the radical MP, and suggestions were made that the collection be purchased by the government to form the basis of a national gallery of painting, but it was already too late.

The Walpole purchase was typical of Catherine who began to collect pictures as soon as she ascended the Russian throne in 1762, frequently buying whole collections of outstanding quality. Public attitude in Britain to the sale was dramatically summed up by an indignant article in The European Magazine in 1782, which said: “The removal of the Houghton Collection of Pictures to Russia is, perhaps, one of the most striking instances that can be produced of the decline of the empire of Great Britain, and the advancement of that of our powerful ally in the north…”

One of the most remarkable features of Walpole’s collection is that it perfectly reflects the taste of the period, and what most people were only able to admire Walpole was able to acquire. At its core are works by 17th century Flemish and Italian paintings: Sir Peter Paul Rubens, Sir Antony van Dyck, Frans Snyders, Guido Reni, Carlo Maratti and Salvator Rosa.

Catherine’s purchases also included the portrait by Sir Godfrey Kneller of the great woodcarver and sculptor Grinling Gibbons who had worked at Houghton Hall. Vulcan’s Forge a powerful work by the Neapolitan artist Luca Giordano (1634-1705) is also included in the exhibition.

Sir Robert Walpole entered parliament in 1701 at the age of 25 and became Britain’s first Prime Minister in 1721. He was the first to occupy 10 Downing Street, from 1735 until his resignation in 1742, when he was created 1st Earl of Orford, and served in the House of Lords until his death in 1745. While Walpole was active on the political scene, his growing picture collections, which he began in 1720s, was scattered between his various London houses. One of the finest examples of Palladian architecture in England, Houghton Hall was began in 1722 and completed in 1735. When Walpole retired in 1742 he moved most of the London paintings to Houghton.

The profligacy and inherited debts of Walpole’s grandson, the 3d Earl of Orford, were the main causes of the secretive sale of such a large number of paintings from his collection to Catherine the Great. The final price she paid for 204 works was £40,555 and she dispatched a ship to England to transport the paintings to Russia in the autumn of 1779. The Russian Art historian Vladimir Levinson-Lessing, author of a distinguished history of the Hermitage, described the acquisition as “one of the greatest events in the life of the Hermitage – the purchase in England of the famous Gallery of Lord Walpole”.

The collection of Sir Robert Walpole perfectly reflected an early 18th century English collector’s taste. At its core were works by Dutch and especially Flemish painters. However, it also represented well the French and Italian schools of painting. The most remarkable paintings were by Rembrandt, Peter Paul Rubens, Anthony Van Dyck, Frans Snyders, Guido Reni, Carlo Maratti and Salvator Rosa. Alongside these were great works by such artists as Nicolas Poussin, Claude Lorrain and a painting by Bartolome Murillo in its original frame designed by William Kent for Houghton Hall. Sir Robert Walpole also acquired pictures by artists who played a central role in the visual arts in Britain and the temporary return of some of these works to London was a welcome event. Like his contemporaries, Walpole admired the portraiture of Anthony Van Dyck (1599-1641). A special interest in the exhibit is his portrait of Inigo Jones, the renowned British architect who worked at old Somerset House.

Six of the Walpole paintings were sold abroad in the 1930s but 126 are still in the Hermitage Museum, a further 15 in Moscow and 21 more in various museums around Russia and the Ukraine. The fate of 36 is still unknown, 6 of them having disappeared during the German occupation of former Imperial palaces during the Second World War. Portrait of George I by G. Kneller which disappeared during the War from the St Petersburg suburban residence Gatchina was restored to Russia by the German government in June 2002.

The exhibition offers the public a splendid opportunity to see this legendary British collection temporarily returned to the collector’s country. Houghton Hall, now the family seat of Sir Robert Walpole’s direct descendant, the 7th Marquess of Cholmondeley, is considered one of the country’s finest Palladian houses. The Hall was designed to house Walpole’s prized collection of Old Master paintings, and the magnificent interiors and furnishings designed by William Kent are also still intact. The paintings in the Houghton Revisited exhibition will be hung in their original positions in the State Rooms, bringing them back to the splendor of more than two centuries ago.

The exhibition is curated at the State Hermitage Museum by Tatiana Bushmina, Western European Art Department, and at Houghton Hall by Dr. Thierry Morel, art historian, UK. The exhibition is generously supported by lead sponsor BP, and by Oracle Capital Group and Christie’s.

The State Hermitage Museum, Press Office

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