Appendix of Collectors’ Biographies

Nicholas Penny

The Midleton collection in London and at Peper‐Harow

The Brodrick family rose to prominence as servants of the Crown in the early seventeenth century and to political eminence a hundred years later. Thomas Brodrick, Lieutenant Governor of the Tower of London, was knighted in 1625. His second son, Sir St John Brodrick, took the Cromwellian side in the English civil war and received large grants of land in Ireland. He was pardoned by the Crown through the influence of his elder brother; his Irish property was extended in 1670 and grouped into the Manor of Midleton. Alan, Sir St John’s son, was made Lord High Chancellor of Ireland in 1714, Baron Brodrick of Midleton in 1715 and Viscount Midleton in 1717. His elder brother, Thomas, enjoyed a political career of equal success and was created Privy Councillor by George I in 1714.¹

It was this Thomas Brodrick who emerged suddenly as an art collector of considerable significance in 1720, when he was over 65 years old. In 1720 or 1721, for example, he purchased Van Eyck’s Portrait of a Man (fig. 20, NG 222), formerly in Lord Arundel’s collection, from the Earl of Strafford,² and on 6 August 1722 at the sale of William van Huls (after 1649–1722), Clerk of the Queen’s Robes and Wardrobes, courtier and diplomat in the service of King William III,³ he bought a great Rembrandt self portrait⁴ – both works of the first importance and today in the National Gallery (NG 223 and NG 221).

The collection of ‘Mr Brodericks Membr Parliament’ was described by the antiquarian George Vertue (1684–1756). The mixture of Dutch, Flemish and Italian works was typical of British collections at that date – the quality, however, was outstanding and perhaps it is a measure of Brodrick’s seriousness that he was the proud possessor of a Van Eyck (‘the first painter in oyl’, as Vertue describes him)⁵ because this must have given a historical dimension to his collection lacking in those formed by the 1st Earl of Bradford, perhaps the most voracious British collector of the previous generation,⁶ or by contemporary rivals such as Sir Robert Walpole ⁷ or Sir Gregory Turner.⁸ He also acquired, apparently in 1724, a work by Dürer – the Judgement of Solomon – later considered to be by Michael Wohlgemuth and sold as such in 1945.⁹

Vertue’s list, which seems to have been made in 1723, consists of the following:¹⁰

• a fine head of Rhinbrants own picture bought at Mr. Van huls sale.
• a fine head of Charles 5 Emperor. by Titian. half figure.
• a large picture of many figures by Ba. Bandinelli.
• the picture of Johan de Eyck curiously painted on board …
• A very Beautifull strong View of Tivoly by Gaspar poussin. The strongest of the greatest force that possible can be. Sombrous manner. bought at Loo. in Holland. 4 foot by near 3.
• a fine Curious March by Wouverman –
• a fine Old Baptist of Flowers.
• a fine piece of dead fowles by Buckdane by much the finest of him I ever saw strong & finely Colour’d
• a sea piece a ship on Fire by V. Velde
• a curious small piece dit’o of G. Dou.
• Meiris
• one piece of Vandr. Werf. 3 boys at Cards.
• of Polenburgh some pieces.
• His Wife & Child a small picture. & many other pi.
• A fine large bunch of white grapes painted by G. Verelst at Hampton Court for K. Charles. not woolly but transparent and finely pencilld.

Some of these pictures were no doubt optimistically named. The Titian must be a portrait later attributed to Van Thulden.¹¹ The Dou was later identified as of a woman selling cherries and is probably identical with a painting attributed to Franz de Paula Ferg (1689–1740) in the nineteenth century.¹² On the other hand, the ‘Curious March by Wouverman’ must have been a fine specimen (it fetched the high price of £250 in 1851).¹³ The ‘Meiris’ may have been the exceptionally beautiful Terborch, now in the Taft Museum in Cincinnati, of the lady with a white satin dress tickling the face of a sleeping officer which Brodrick certainly owned and probably acquired in Holland (it was in Amsterdam in 1706).¹⁴ On the other hand, the Terborch may not have entered the collection at the date Vertue inspected it, for the Rubens, then believed to be of the Queen of Cyprus and now recognised as the Suicide of Dido, and since 1953 in the Louvre, was in Brodrick’s possession by 1724¹⁵ and would surely not have been missed by Vertue. Nor would he have neglected to mention Van Dyck’s Portrait of Paul de Pont, which Brodrick owned.¹⁶ The Adriaen van Ostade of peasants drinking dated 1649, one of the most admired works in the collection,¹⁷ would not have been likely to escape his notice since he thought the Van der Werff worthy of attention. So we may conclude that Vertue was either only shown a part of the collection or, more likely, recorded a collection that was being formed.

Naturally, Vertue’s values do not correspond with ours – few today would be so impressed by Simon Pieterz. Verelst, whose flower pieces especially were so extravagantly admired at that date.¹⁸ But connoisseurship of Dutch and Flemish paintings in London in the 1720s seems to have been competent, whereas knowledge of Italian old masters was very uncertain. Vertue as well as Brodrick were, it seems, deceived by the Titian. Brodrick was very proud of a Caravaggio portrait he had purchased much more cheaply than a Rubens, but it is unlikely to have had anything to do with that artist.¹⁹ The Bandinelli may be the National Gallery’s Garofalo of Two Couples with Cupid (NG 1362), a large painting recorded for certain in the collection later in the century (when there is no mention of a Bandinelli). An explanation for this confusion is given in the catalogue entry for this picture (p. 268).

Vertue further notes of Thomas Brodrick that this Gentleman … it was that brought a Bill into the house of Commons to pass an Act for importing of pictures into England paying according to the size. from 20 shillings each picture to four pounds the most. when as before it was ad Valorem & caus’d great roguery & false swearing & prevented the best or very good pictures to come in the Custom amounting so high & instead of that Copies were brought in sworn & sold for originals & the Curious deceived. & since this Act already many good pictures are brought in. & few copies since this twelvemonth.²⁰

The business of importing pictures and consciousness of a need to know more of Italian art are relevant to the continental travels made by Thomas Brodrick’s nephew Alan. In addition to letters of frigid formality to his father, the young man responded on 8 November 1724 from Bologna to his uncle’s ‘command’ to supply observations on the ‘Present and Antient painters’.²¹ He assured his uncle that he had consulted the ‘greatest virtuosos’ available and recited the official estimate of great masters such as Veronese and Titian (correcting what he took to be his uncle’s misapprehensions concerning the former). He had the taste and modesty to add that he was impressed at Cremona by Giulio and Bernardino Campi (‘men whose names I had never heard’) and at Parma by Schedone. He made the mistake of supposing that his uncle’s ‘Queen of Cyprus’ was a Lucretia and perhaps by ‘one of the Caracches’ and described a painting of Sophonisba by Balestra – ‘a scholar of Marat’ – on sale for about £50.

A month later, writing from Venice, he provided his uncle with a story designed to demonstrate both his own taste and the expert advice he had sought out. ‘In Ferrara I was told of a portrait of Paulo [Veronese, in whose work his uncle had expressed an interest] which I at first sight suspected not to be his, & was assured by Mr Swiny (whom you must certainly have seen [page 481]often at the late Lord Whartons) not only that it was not of him but that it was certainly a piece of Alessandro Varotari’²² (Varotari was in fact, confusingly, sometimes known as Veronese). ‘Swiny’ was Owen McSwiny, the remarkable Irish actor, dramatist, librettist, impresario, art dealer and agent whose scheme of paintings for monuments to British Worthies was then in progress.²³ McSwiny was providing young Brodrick with ‘all possible Insight into Pictures … Painting has been his Employment for near eleven years and I fancy he has made some money of buying and selling pictures.’ Sure enough, it soon transpired that he had some for sale: a Pasinelli and a portrait by Ludovico Carracci. The Balestra, he reminded his uncle, was ‘near in size of your Queen of Cyprus which I took for a Lucretia’.²⁴ In his next letter, also from Venice, he gave the exact sizes of all these, noting (cleverly) that the Pasinelli of Herodias was of a quality to be taken for a Guido ‘but the price of 100 or 110 pounds makes me not meddle with it’. He noted that letters should be sent to him in Venice at ‘Mr Smith’s an English merchant’.²⁵ When he reassured his uncle that he had investigated the profit McSwiny would be making on the Pasinelli, he was allowed to buy it, as also the Balestra.²⁶ His uncle’s insistence on measurements may perhaps be partly explained by the new import regulations but more probably by the arrangement of the collection. In a letter to his nephew he commended the Ludovico Carracci: ‘the size … differs so very little from my Spagnolet that twill perfectly well match it’.²⁷ Consul Smith was responsible for packing and dispatching these works to Thomas Brodrick but sent ‘my picture done by Rosalba’ – that is, a portrait in pastels of Alan by Rosalba Carriera – in place of the Balestra (the Rosalba was not intended for his uncle).²⁸ Meanwhile, in Rome in the spring he bought a ‘Rebecca at the Well’ by Benedetto Luti, noting that Mr Coke (the heir to the Earl of Leicester) had bought another version of this at a far higher price and that he knew it could be sold for the price paid if his uncle didn’t like it. He also bought a Nicolas Poussin of the Story of Coral, which was a bargain (costing 130 Roman crowns but previously offered at 500) and combined the merits of the painter’s early and late styles.²⁹ Evidently he had authority to spend £300 and the five pieces he had bought came to £260. Had his uncle not bid him ‘stop his hand’, he had his eye on a Bassano and a ‘Prete Genovese’. He does seem to have added a Cignani – it is no doubt the work by that artist which he had noted in McSwiny’s possession – and the total amount spent came to £294 12s. 8d.³⁰

It is not entirely clear what happened to all these Grand Tour purchases by Alan Brodrick. His pastel portrait by Rosalba, later joined by another of the same size, would remain in the family until sold at Christie’s in 1945.³¹ The most expensive painting acquired for his uncle, the Pasinelli, also remained in the family collection. It was sold for a trifle in 1851 and is now in Stanford University Art Gallery, California.³² The most important of his purchases was surely the Poussin. It is clear from his letter that this represented the Origin of Coral. A finished compositional drawing of this subject, dated 1626–8, is at Windsor Castle, but it has never previously been associated with a painting by the artist.³³ The painting was certainly in the collection in the 1730s. It may just possibly be ‘classical landscape with a waterfall and woody height beyond, figures reposing in the foreground’ by ‘N. Poussin’, offered in 1851 and bought in at 40 guineas.³⁴ There is no reference to any work by Balestra in later accounts of the collection but a ‘Sophonisba’ is once mentioned.³⁵ The Cignani (apparently of Adonis) seems to have been in the collection in the late eighteenth century but then vanishes.³⁶ The same is true of the Luti.³⁷ The Carracci cannot be traced at all.

We might suppose from this episode that Thomas Brodrick had it in mind to bequeath his collection to Alan, who, on his return to London, seems to have acted as his secretary.³⁸ However, he had a much older nephew – the son of his brother’s first marriage – who was already launched on a successful political career. It was only when this elder nephew died in 1728 that Thomas Brodrick drew up a will bequeathing all his ‘plate pictures household furnishings’ and all other possessions to Alan, mentioning especially the ‘marble bustos of the Duke of Marlborough and Earl of Godolphin’ he hoped would be kept in his family as memory of ‘two of the greatest and faith fullest subjects … the age has produced’.³⁹ In the same year the 1st Viscount died and Alan succeeded him. The collection of paintings was moved into his town house in Golden Square. The earliest inventory of 1732 reveals that no fewer than 63 of them were concentrated in the principal bedchamber.⁴⁰

George Brodrick, the 3rd Viscount, set out on the Grand Tour in 1750–1, shortly before he came of age (and after his father’s death) but it is not recorded that he acquired anything for the family collection. His wife Albinia Townshend, however, did so. She annotated a manuscript catalogue of the collection then housed at New Burlington Street, apparently compiled before her husband’s death, to indicate that 20 of the pictures were her personal property – these included a Venus and Cupid by Albani, a Virgin and Child by Sassoferrato and a landscape by Domenichino – and noting that some works had been sold.⁴¹ This catalogue lists over 125 paintings. Of these, 44 were in the ‘Dining Room upstairs’, 42 were in the ‘Dressing Room’ and 14 in the ‘Parlour’. The Garofalo (‘Ben Venuto Da Garofoly’), described as of ‘Mars & Venus in a double action’, was no. 7 in the dining room. The collection was again listed at the end of 1765, when it seems to have been in another house – probably the dowager’s house in Great Marlborough Street – and this inventory, annotated by Albinia, corresponds with an insurance valuation dated November 1767 of £5,000.⁴²

Meanwhile, a country house had been built that would soon house the collection. The manor of Peper‐Harow (or Peper‐Hara as it was then more frequently called) near Godalming in Surrey was acquired in 1713 by the 1st Viscount.⁴³ Plans were being made to build in the 1750s, the park was reshaped by Capability Brown in about 1760, and the 3rd Viscount, shortly before his death in 1765, seems to have approved designs for a new house by Sir William Chambers.⁴⁴ The building work was completed in two years but resumed a decade later – for instance, the bill for the drawing room chimney by Joseph Wilton is dated 1777⁴⁵ – and it is likely that it was only inhabited when the 4th Viscount came of age in 1776. We may suppose that the pictures were moved there at about the date that Wilton’s chimneypiece was installed. The family papers include rough drawings for the hang in the ‘Great Drawing Room’, the splendid room measuring 42 by 22 feet that we know to have been hung with ‘crimson silk and stuff damask’.⁴⁶ In one suggested arrangement the portrait attributed to Titian of the Emperor Charles V was to be placed above the chimney with the Domenichino to the left and the Garofalo to the right; in another (which seems to have been [page 482]carried out), Rubens’s ‘Queen of Cyprus’ was to be above the chimney with the same neighbours but reversed and with smaller pictures below them (a Claude beneath the Garofalo).⁴⁷ These sketches may reflect the architect’s ideas. He would certainly have known that the collection was to hang there and was probably responsible for commissioning from his friend Stubbs three overdoors for the Dining Room⁴⁸ – these were Lord Rockingham’s Mares and Foals, now in the Tate, and a group of young leopards, and another of a hound attacking a stag.⁴⁹ The sculptural sources and frieze‐like character of these works is perhaps partly explained by this architectural setting, and the Tate’s picture retains a narrow neoclassical frame that originally united it with the architecture of the room.

The most complete account of the collection in the eighteenth century is a detailed bill, dated November 1796, drawn up by the prominent London picture restorer George Simpson.⁵⁰ It lists 130 paintings cleaned and, in many cases, re‐framed by him and delivered to Peper‐Harow.⁵¹ It is likely that the house was refurnished at the same date in preparation for the 4th Viscount’s second wife (he remarried in June 1797). The frames are not always specified, although some are identified as ‘fine Italian’ examples, and ‘Carlo Maratt’ frames surrounded, for example, the Rubens and the Claude (at £4 14s. 6d. and £3 7s. 0d. respectively).The top price of 12 guineas was for a ‘large pair of capital frames carved in the wood for the large Benvenuto Garoffolo & landscape by Domenichino’, which shows that these were to remain as pendants. This work must have been subcontracted by Simpson, who is not otherwise recorded as a framer. It seems likely from later records of the collection that more paintings were acquired in the early nineteenth century.

The 5th Viscount Midleton, who succeeded in 1836, had already alarmed his family by marrying Ellen Griffith. She is described in a footnote to The Complete Peerage as ‘a respectable girl, da. of a peasant’, with the further information that she ‘separated from him early in 1847, as he stated, through his own fault’. In the following year Lord Midleton ‘suffocated himself intentionally with charcoal fumes’.⁵² He had given extensive employment to Augustus Welby Pugin in the village church and on the estates in both Surrey and Ireland. These buildings, he confessed in 1844, had ‘undoubtedly received all my disposable income’ and he was alleged not only to have turned his mother and sister out of Peper‐Harow, but generally to have been ‘fonder of bricks and mortar than mankind’.⁵³ His tastes were not, in fact, only for the Gothic. He employed Charles Robert Cockerell to modify the house, adding a porte cochère in 1843,⁵⁴ and in Rome, between 1841 and 1843, he bought terracottas and a marble Bacchante from Joseph Gott, and plaster busts and two ‘mosaic’ (that is, marble inlay and micro‐mosaic) tables from Barberi.⁵⁵ But there is no evidence that he was interested in paintings. His heir recalled that after his ‘sudden death’ in November 1848 it was discovered that his ‘dispositions had been such as to necessitate heavy litigation which was finally ended by the passing of a private act of parliament nearly two years later’.⁵⁶ As a result of the legal costs a large collection of prints was sold at Christie’s on 30 July 1851 and 87 pictures, together with the mosaic tables and the Bacchante, were offered on the following day. This was not the entire collection and many of the paintings were bought in, but there was a clear intention to dispose of the most valuable. The Van Eyck was bought by the dealer Henry Farrer, acting for the National Gallery, for 300 guineas (the estimate was 200) and the Rembrandt (estimated at 700 guineas) was bought by Charles Eastlake for 410 guineas. Eastlake may have been acting for himself – it seems curious otherwise that he, rather than Farrer, bid for it – but he would have felt obliged to offer it for the purchase price to the Gallery of which he was at that date a Trustee (ex‐officio because he was President of the Royal Academy). The Garofalo was bought in at 120 guineas and the Rubens at 136. These were re‐offered at Christie’s on 20 March in the following year and sold for 97 and 50 guineas respectively.⁵⁷ The ‘Grand Landscape with Erminia and the Shepherds’ by Domenichino, the highly esteemed pendant of the Garofalo, fetched a mere £25 14s. 6d.⁵⁸ The Gaspar of Tivoli that had so impressed Vertue fetched £50 8s.⁵⁹ McSwiny’s 100‐guinea Pasinelli was catalogued as by ‘Pascalini’ and bought in for less than £10.⁶⁰

London experts probably supposed that little of importance remained at Peper‐Harow and the 6th Viscount, mostly resident in Eaton Place or disconsolately travelling abroad, convinced himself and everyone else that the family had been ruined by his predecessor,⁶¹ so it is unsurprising that Gustav Waagen never visited. However, there were a great many paintings at Peper‐Harow – over 92 are included in a list dated January 1861.⁶² They were hung throughout the house but with 34 of them concentrated in the drawing room, in some cases three high, including a Murillo Salvator Mundi, landscapes by Claude and Wynants and another Garofalo, The Marriage of Saint Catherine, smaller than the Two Couples with Cupid (NG 1362, pp. 262–9).⁶³ There were 11 pictures in the library and the same number in the dining room and breakfast room.

Some themes may be discerned in the hang: in the dining room, where the animals by Stubbs remained as overdoors, there were paintings of flowers, game and animals; portraits and heads of philosophers adorned the library; family portraits hung in the breakfast room. There were five landscapes in the Chintz Bedroom and dressing room and eight in the boudoir, including the precious Brueghel River Scene.

In 1871, on the accession of the 8th Viscount, who energetically reformed the organisation of the house and estate, many of the paintings were cleaned and lined and many frames entirely or partly stripped and re‐gilded in London by William Neil.⁶⁴ Twenty years later there was more cleaning, re‐varnishing and re‐gilding by J.L. Rutley, this time on the premises.⁶⁵ Fifty‐two paintings were sold by the 2nd Earl and his Trustees at Christie’s in 42 lots on 26 October 1945. That this was effectively the end of the Midleton collection must have been clear from the fact that the family portraits were included in the sale. A few valuable pictures remained with the family. The small coppers by Brill, Brueghel the younger and Coninxloo were sold in 1964,⁶⁶ the small Garofalo was sold in 1967, as was the Naval Battle by Willem van de Velde the Younger,⁶⁷ doubtless the ‘sea piece’ that Vertue had recorded nearly 250 years before.

The house, used for some time as a special school, has now been divided into flats. Although much damaged by a fire (especially in the upper floor, added in 1913), the Great Drawing Room has been restored to something approaching its original appearance, except that no great painting hangs there.