![]() ![]() But the empress had no intention of relinquishing these purchases, which had established her reputation as Europe’s foremost collector of art. There was a failed bid to raise public funds to try to buy back the paintings. government buy the Walpole collection and house it. ![]() ![]() Massie in his biography, “Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Queen.”Ī Walpole heir called the sale a “theft.” There had been talk of having the U.K. “ More than a collection of paintings was being removed from the country a whole chapter of British history and culture was being shipped away,” wrote Robert K. Heavily burdened by debt, George Walpole sold about two hundred paintings to Catherine in 1779. ![]() But Walpole’s heirs struggled to maintain the collection’s home in stately Houghton Hall. It included works by Rembrandt and other masters of the Dutch Golden Age. Catherine II walking by V.Borovikovskiy (1794, Tretyakov gallery), image in public domain from Wikipedia.Ĭatherine II of Russia (1729–1796) touched off a storm of public indignation in England with what British people saw as her raid on a national treasure.īefore his death in 1745, Britain’s first prime minister, Sir Robert Walpole, had created one of the finest collections of European paintings of his time. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |