It was Britain’s finest collection of Old Masters — featuring Rembrandt, Rubens, Poussin, Van Dyck, Lely and many, many more — and it is coming home, from Russia, this summer.
It is the collection Sir Robert Walpole put together for the home he built, Houghton Hall in Norfolk, and on May 17, in a unique deal with the Hermitage, the paintings go on show at Houghton in precisely the positions where Walpole, our first prime minister, himself hung them.
