Overview

The collection of pictures at Wilton has been celebrated since the seventeenth century; and its historic arrangement is uniquely well documented in a series of catalogues of which the first, issued in 1731, was the earliest such publication about any private collection in England. Of successive owners of the house, three made significant contributions: William, 4th Earl of Pembroke, who commissioned van Dyck's monumental portrait of his family that dominates the Double Cube Room he had created; his grandson, Thomas, 8th Earl of Pembroke who assembled what was in some respects a pioneering collection of old master pictures for the house; and his grandson, Henry, 10th Earl of Pembroke, patron of Reynolds and Wilson, among others. Such masterpieces as Lucas van Leyden's Card Players, Cesare da Sesto's Leda - long attributed to Leonardo - and Ribera's Democritus are matched by remarkable portrait drawings by Raphael and Holbein. These are complemented by a substantial deposit of family portraits and other pictures that attest to the tastes and interests of successive generations of the Herbert family.

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9781789699845

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Francis Russell is a Deputy Chairman of Christie's. He has contributed numerous articles on subjects ranging from Italian Renaissance painting and Grand Tour portraiture and patronage to the history of collecting to scholarly periodicals, including the Burlington Magazine, Apollo and Master Drawings, to Country Life and to exhibition catalogues. Previous books include John, 3rd Earl of Bute: Patron and Collector (2004); Places in Italy (2007 - enlarged editions 2014 and 2019); Places in Turkey (2010 - enlarged edition 2017); Places in Syria (2011); and Places in Jordan (2012).

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