Lost Treasures of Strawberry Hill

f o r e wo r d

Strawberry Hill, built from 1749 to 1790, was the lifetime project of Horace Walpole (1717–1797), the author, historian, commentator and passionate collector. Used as a summer villa, but posing as an ancestral castle, it established the gothic revival style of the eighteenth century and inspired Walpole to write The Castle of Otranto, the first gothic novel. Thanks in part to its fashionable Thames-side location close to London, and to Walpole’s careful publicity, Strawberry Hill attracted a stream of visitors from the start, drawn by its atmospheric interiors and the great collection that filled them. By the time of his death in 1797, Strawberry Hill contained at least 4,000 objects, not counting several thousand prints, drawings and coins, acquired over some 55 years. The collection included paintings and sculpture of all periods, classical antiquities, historical curiosities and a wide range of decorative arts. Walpole collected the beautiful but also valued objects for their meaning, especially the access they gave to people and events in the past. He embraced several different collecting traditions, most notably the high art of European connoisseurs and the historic portraits and objects of British antiquarians. These were reflected in the rooms at Strawberry Hill, which included a picture gallery, a cabinet of curiosities and the Holbein Chamber, a pioneering museum of the sixteenth century. But perhaps most striking was the sheer variety of works of art and objects, 6 LOST TREASURES OF STRAWBERRY HILL

from drawings by Dürer and Sandby, to paintings

by Raphael and Reynolds, carving by Grinling Gibbons and porcelain from Sèvres. Suspecting that his collection, and his house, would not long survive him, Walpole carefully recorded them in his Description of Strawberry Hill, in which he placed himself in the line of great collectors of the past.

The famous collection was dispersed in a 24-day sale in 1842, making Strawberry Hill a prized provenance ever since. The house survived, and in 2015 the Strawberry Hill Trust fully restored it to its eighteenth-century state. At the same time, the Strawberry Hill Collection Trust has been working to locate and retrieve what it can of Walpole’s lost collection. This book has been published to accompany a major loan exhibition which returns many of the most significant pieces to the house. The help and support of colleagues at Strawberry Hill in realising the book, and the exhibition, is greatly appreciated. The exhibition has been made possible through the sponsorship of J. Stern & Co. and generous support from The Foyle Foundation, The Monument Trust and many other donors. It has been arranged in association with The Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University.

The Strawberry Hill Trust would also like to thank the lenders, both public and private, whose generosity has provided the unique opportunity to experience the treasures of Walpole’s great collection in the rooms he created to display them.

FOREWORD 7

f o r e wo r d

Strawberry Hill, built from 1749 to 1790, was the lifetime project of Horace Walpole (1717–1797), the author, historian, commentator and passionate collector. Used as a summer villa, but posing as an ancestral castle, it established the gothic revival style of the eighteenth century and inspired Walpole to write The Castle of Otranto, the first gothic novel. Thanks in part to its fashionable Thames-side location close to London, and to Walpole’s careful publicity, Strawberry Hill attracted a stream of visitors from the start, drawn by its atmospheric interiors and the great collection that filled them. By the time of his death in 1797, Strawberry Hill contained at least 4,000 objects, not counting several thousand prints, drawings and coins, acquired over some 55 years. The collection included paintings and sculpture of all periods, classical antiquities, historical curiosities and a wide range of decorative arts. Walpole collected the beautiful but also valued objects for their meaning, especially the access they gave to people and events in the past. He embraced several different collecting traditions, most notably the high art of European connoisseurs and the historic portraits and objects of British antiquarians. These were reflected in the rooms at Strawberry Hill, which included a picture gallery, a cabinet of curiosities and the Holbein Chamber, a pioneering museum of the sixteenth century. But perhaps most striking was the sheer variety of works of art and objects, 6 LOST TREASURES OF STRAWBERRY HILL

from drawings by Dürer and Sandby, to paintings

by Raphael and Reynolds, carving by Grinling Gibbons and porcelain from Sèvres. Suspecting that his collection, and his house, would not long survive him, Walpole carefully recorded them in his Description of Strawberry Hill, in which he placed himself in the line of great collectors of the past.

The famous collection was dispersed in a 24-day sale in 1842, making Strawberry Hill a prized provenance ever since. The house survived, and in 2015 the Strawberry Hill Trust fully restored it to its eighteenth-century state. At the same time, the Strawberry Hill Collection Trust has been working to locate and retrieve what it can of Walpole’s lost collection. This book has been published to accompany a major loan exhibition which returns many of the most significant pieces to the house. The help and support of colleagues at Strawberry Hill in realising the book, and the exhibition, is greatly appreciated. The exhibition has been made possible through the sponsorship of J. Stern & Co. and generous support from The Foyle Foundation, The Monument Trust and many other donors. It has been arranged in association with The Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University.

The Strawberry Hill Trust would also like to thank the lenders, both public and private, whose generosity has provided the unique opportunity to experience the treasures of Walpole’s great collection in the rooms he created to display them.

FOREWORD 7

i n t ro d u c t i o n

In 1747 Horace Walpole acquired the leasehold of ‘a little rural bijoux’ beside the Thames in Twickenham to serve as his summer villa. Strawberry Hill was the name Walpole eventually chose for his fantastical ancestral castle, where heraldry and family portraits were carefully chosen to heighten its atmosphere. By the time of Walpole’s death fifty years later, in 1797, the estate had grown to 46 acres and Strawberry Hill, filled with his extraordinary collection, had become the most celebrated gothic revival house in England.

Horace Walpole’s father Robert (1676–1745) was the 1st Earl of Orford and Britain’s longest-serving Prime Minister, and came from a family of landed gentry in Norfolk. His mother Catherine Shorter (d. 1737) counted a Lord Mayor of London among her ancestors.

After attending Eton and Cambridge, Walpole was provided by his father with three sinecure offices for life. The revenues from these, in addition to his election as a Member of Parliament between 1754 and 1768, saved him the trouble of finding a profession or a salaried vocation. In 1739 he began a two-year Grand Tour of France and Italy. On his return, Walpole drew closer to his father, with whom he shared houses in Arlington Street and at 10 Downing Street.

Walpole as builder

1 John Carter (1748–1817), The Tribune at Strawberry Hill, c.1789 Watercolour, 59.2 × 49.5 cm The Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University, 789.00.00.73dr++

8 LOST TREASURES OF STRAWBERRY HILL

The building Walpole acquired in 1747 was of little architectural importance. What mattered was its situation, as Walpole wrote to his friend, the diplomat Sir Horace Mann (1706–1786), in Florence: ‘Mr. Chute, I hope, will tell you how pleasant it is … for we have a glimmering of a Venetian prospect: he is just going from hence to town by water, down our Brenta’ (29 April 1748).

It was only in 1751 that the full-scale gothic development of Strawberry Hill began. Walpole understood Mann’s dislike of his stylistic choice: ‘thank you a thousand times for thinking of procuring me some Gothic remains from Rome; but I believe there is no such thing there; I scarce remember any morsel in the true taste of it in INTRODUCTION 9

i n t ro d u c t i o n

In 1747 Horace Walpole acquired the leasehold of ‘a little rural bijoux’ beside the Thames in Twickenham to serve as his summer villa. Strawberry Hill was the name Walpole eventually chose for his fantastical ancestral castle, where heraldry and family portraits were carefully chosen to heighten its atmosphere. By the time of Walpole’s death fifty years later, in 1797, the estate had grown to 46 acres and Strawberry Hill, filled with his extraordinary collection, had become the most celebrated gothic revival house in England.

Horace Walpole’s father Robert (1676–1745) was the 1st Earl of Orford and Britain’s longest-serving Prime Minister, and came from a family of landed gentry in Norfolk. His mother Catherine Shorter (d. 1737) counted a Lord Mayor of London among her ancestors.

After attending Eton and Cambridge, Walpole was provided by his father with three sinecure offices for life. The revenues from these, in addition to his election as a Member of Parliament between 1754 and 1768, saved him the trouble of finding a profession or a salaried vocation. In 1739 he began a two-year Grand Tour of France and Italy. On his return, Walpole drew closer to his father, with whom he shared houses in Arlington Street and at 10 Downing Street.

Walpole as builder

1 John Carter (1748–1817), The Tribune at Strawberry Hill, c.1789 Watercolour, 59.2 × 49.5 cm The Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University, 789.00.00.73dr++

8 LOST TREASURES OF STRAWBERRY HILL

The building Walpole acquired in 1747 was of little architectural importance. What mattered was its situation, as Walpole wrote to his friend, the diplomat Sir Horace Mann (1706–1786), in Florence: ‘Mr. Chute, I hope, will tell you how pleasant it is … for we have a glimmering of a Venetian prospect: he is just going from hence to town by water, down our Brenta’ (29 April 1748).

It was only in 1751 that the full-scale gothic development of Strawberry Hill began. Walpole understood Mann’s dislike of his stylistic choice: ‘thank you a thousand times for thinking of procuring me some Gothic remains from Rome; but I believe there is no such thing there; I scarce remember any morsel in the true taste of it in INTRODUCTION 9

Italy. Indeed, my dear Sir, kind as you are about it, I perceive you have no idea what Gothic is; you have lived too long amidst true taste, to understand venerable barbarism’ (27 April 1753). It is in his letters to Mann that we find the clearest explanation of Walpole’s decision to adopt the gothic style at Strawberry Hill: ‘I shall speak much more gently to you, my dear child, though you don’t like Gothic architecture. The Grecian is only proper for magnificent and public buildings. Columns and all their beautiful ornaments look ridiculous when crowded into a closet or a cheesecake-house. The variety is little, and admits no charming irregularities’ (25 February 1750). Walpole elaborated these ideas in his Anecdotes of Painting in England: ‘One must have taste to be sensible of the beauties of Grecian architecture; one only wants passions to feel Gothic.’ This is a clear articulation of Edmund Burke’s ideas in A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful, published in 1757.

The ‘Beautiful’ gives a positive, relaxing pleasure, whereas the ‘Sublime’ excites feelings of danger and fear, but we can take pleasure in what terrifies us as long as we know we are at a safe distance.

For Walpole, Strawberry Hill, with its towers and shadowy recesses, represented a theatre where the sensations of fear, surprise and suspense might be enjoyed in safety.

To design the house, Walpole set up the ‘Strawberry Committee’, where he was joined by the amateur architect John Chute (1701– 1776) and the artist Richard Bentley (1708–1782). They set out to reproduce an accurate gothic style, not a ‘bastard one’. To do so they copied architectural elements from prints of medieval tombs or decorative elements found in the works of the seventeenth-century historian and topographer William Dugdale and the eighteenthcentury topographer and antiquarian John Dart, among others. The same cut-and-paste method was used in this period by architects and designers imitating Roman monuments, and Walpole was excited by the novelty of applying the method to the gothic revival at Strawberry Hill: ‘As my castle it is so diminutive, I give myself a Burlington air and say, that as Chiswick [House] is a model of Grecian architecture, Strawberry is to be so of Gothic’ (letter to Horace Mann, 4 March 1753).

Walpole was a dedicated recorder of his house and its contents in his writings and in specially commissioned drawings. The former included many of his 4,000 letters and most notably the two editions of his Description of the Villa of Mr Horace Walpole, printed at his own press in 1774 and 1784. The Description resembles a 10 LOST TREASURES OF STRAWBERRY HILL

2 overleaf, above John Carter (1748–1817), View of the Library at Strawberry Hill, 1788 Ink and wash, watercolour, 24.7 × 31 cm The Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University, 49.3582 3 overleaf, below John Carter (1748–1817), View of the Great Parlour, c.1788 Watercolour and ink, 25.3 × 30.4 cm The Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University, Folio 33 30, copy 11

guidebook but was in fact intended to preserve his own creation from destruction and oblivion and establish him among the great collectors. Walpole also produced two manuscripts which prove to be essential for our understanding of the house and its collection: a list of ‘Principal Curiosities’, which includes all the objects in his collection he especially valued, and a manuscript account (now in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge) describing how ‘Great effects may be produced by the disposition of a House, & by studying lights & shades, and by attending to a harmony of colours’.

Three main preoccupations emerge from Walpole’s written descriptions of the house. The first is its size. It is a country house on a modest scale and its interiors and rooms required fragments and smaller rather than larger objects: ‘I am going to build a little Gothic castle at Strawberry Hill. If you can pick me up any fragments of old painted glass, arms, or anything, I shall be excessively obliged to you’, Walpole wrote to Mann on 10 January 1750. The second element in his writings is artifice. The words ‘as if’ frequently recur, and artifice, in the form of trompe l’oeil, copies of works of art and imitation of materials are commonplace at Strawberry Hill. What the eye cannot see is supplied and completed by the viewer, reminding us of Joseph Addison’s ‘Pleasures of the Imagination’ (1712), in which sight is deemed the most important sense and the greatest stimulus to imaginative thought. The third element is irony, a rhetorical device common in eighteenth-century writings. Walpole repeatedly describes Strawberry Hill as a trifle and himself as the master trifler, while in practice he was both serious and innovative.

His irony helps to create the sense of detachment from reality that Walpole ultimately wanted to achieve at Strawberry Hill. The best expression of this ironic detachment was Walpole’s gothic novel, The Castle of Otranto (1765), where there is a direct relationship between Strawberry Hill and the castle of Walpole’s imagination. Many scenes in the story are set in the house and a painting in the collection becomes part of the plot: in a famous episode Lord Falkland, in his silvery-white costume, comes alive and steps out of his portrait frame (see p. 79). This motif was later elaborated upon by some of the most eminent authors of gothic literature, including Mary Shelley.

Strawberry Hill was constructed in two distinct phases. From 1750 to 1756, a gothic shell was created around the existing building. It had many small spaces for private living and two larger, more public rooms, the Library and the Great Parlour (figs 2 and 3). The public INTRODUCTION 11

Italy. Indeed, my dear Sir, kind as you are about it, I perceive you have no idea what Gothic is; you have lived too long amidst true taste, to understand venerable barbarism’ (27 April 1753). It is in his letters to Mann that we find the clearest explanation of Walpole’s decision to adopt the gothic style at Strawberry Hill: ‘I shall speak much more gently to you, my dear child, though you don’t like Gothic architecture. The Grecian is only proper for magnificent and public buildings. Columns and all their beautiful ornaments look ridiculous when crowded into a closet or a cheesecake-house. The variety is little, and admits no charming irregularities’ (25 February 1750). Walpole elaborated these ideas in his Anecdotes of Painting in England: ‘One must have taste to be sensible of the beauties of Grecian architecture; one only wants passions to feel Gothic.’ This is a clear articulation of Edmund Burke’s ideas in A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful, published in 1757.

The ‘Beautiful’ gives a positive, relaxing pleasure, whereas the ‘Sublime’ excites feelings of danger and fear, but we can take pleasure in what terrifies us as long as we know we are at a safe distance.

For Walpole, Strawberry Hill, with its towers and shadowy recesses, represented a theatre where the sensations of fear, surprise and suspense might be enjoyed in safety.

To design the house, Walpole set up the ‘Strawberry Committee’, where he was joined by the amateur architect John Chute (1701– 1776) and the artist Richard Bentley (1708–1782). They set out to reproduce an accurate gothic style, not a ‘bastard one’. To do so they copied architectural elements from prints of medieval tombs or decorative elements found in the works of the seventeenth-century historian and topographer William Dugdale and the eighteenthcentury topographer and antiquarian John Dart, among others. The same cut-and-paste method was used in this period by architects and designers imitating Roman monuments, and Walpole was excited by the novelty of applying the method to the gothic revival at Strawberry Hill: ‘As my castle it is so diminutive, I give myself a Burlington air and say, that as Chiswick [House] is a model of Grecian architecture, Strawberry is to be so of Gothic’ (letter to Horace Mann, 4 March 1753).

Walpole was a dedicated recorder of his house and its contents in his writings and in specially commissioned drawings. The former included many of his 4,000 letters and most notably the two editions of his Description of the Villa of Mr Horace Walpole, printed at his own press in 1774 and 1784. The Description resembles a 10 LOST TREASURES OF STRAWBERRY HILL

2 overleaf, above John Carter (1748–1817), View of the Library at Strawberry Hill, 1788 Ink and wash, watercolour, 24.7 × 31 cm The Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University, 49.3582 3 overleaf, below John Carter (1748–1817), View of the Great Parlour, c.1788 Watercolour and ink, 25.3 × 30.4 cm The Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University, Folio 33 30, copy 11

guidebook but was in fact intended to preserve his own creation from destruction and oblivion and establish him among the great collectors. Walpole also produced two manuscripts which prove to be essential for our understanding of the house and its collection: a list of ‘Principal Curiosities’, which includes all the objects in his collection he especially valued, and a manuscript account (now in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge) describing how ‘Great effects may be produced by the disposition of a House, & by studying lights & shades, and by attending to a harmony of colours’.

Three main preoccupations emerge from Walpole’s written descriptions of the house. The first is its size. It is a country house on a modest scale and its interiors and rooms required fragments and smaller rather than larger objects: ‘I am going to build a little Gothic castle at Strawberry Hill. If you can pick me up any fragments of old painted glass, arms, or anything, I shall be excessively obliged to you’, Walpole wrote to Mann on 10 January 1750. The second element in his writings is artifice. The words ‘as if’ frequently recur, and artifice, in the form of trompe l’oeil, copies of works of art and imitation of materials are commonplace at Strawberry Hill. What the eye cannot see is supplied and completed by the viewer, reminding us of Joseph Addison’s ‘Pleasures of the Imagination’ (1712), in which sight is deemed the most important sense and the greatest stimulus to imaginative thought. The third element is irony, a rhetorical device common in eighteenth-century writings. Walpole repeatedly describes Strawberry Hill as a trifle and himself as the master trifler, while in practice he was both serious and innovative.

His irony helps to create the sense of detachment from reality that Walpole ultimately wanted to achieve at Strawberry Hill. The best expression of this ironic detachment was Walpole’s gothic novel, The Castle of Otranto (1765), where there is a direct relationship between Strawberry Hill and the castle of Walpole’s imagination. Many scenes in the story are set in the house and a painting in the collection becomes part of the plot: in a famous episode Lord Falkland, in his silvery-white costume, comes alive and steps out of his portrait frame (see p. 79). This motif was later elaborated upon by some of the most eminent authors of gothic literature, including Mary Shelley.

Strawberry Hill was constructed in two distinct phases. From 1750 to 1756, a gothic shell was created around the existing building. It had many small spaces for private living and two larger, more public rooms, the Library and the Great Parlour (figs 2 and 3). The public INTRODUCTION 11

12 LOST TREASURES OF STRAWBERRY HILL

INTRODUCTION 13

12 LOST TREASURES OF STRAWBERRY HILL

INTRODUCTION 13

spaces were imbued with the atmosphere of a gothic monastery, while the private rooms were decorated with fashionable wallpapers.

The second phase of building started in 1761 with the construction of a set of state rooms in a new wing to the west: the Gallery and Tribune in 1763, the Round Drawing Room in 1771 and the Great North Bedchamber in 1773 (figs 1, 4, 5, 8). Mainly intended for entertaining, they were designed for the public display of Walpole’s collections. Most of the walls were hung with rich textiles and the ceilings were elaborately decorated in gold. The link between the eastern and western wings was the Holbein Chamber, completed in 1759 (p. 68). It formed a transition between the gloom of the east wing, which housed the ancestral and family memorabilia, and the light-filled western rooms where works of art were on public display.

6 George Vertue (1684–1756), after Christian Friederich Zincke (1683–1767), Portrait of Catherine Walpole (née Shorter), 1748 Stipple and line engraving, 21.7 × 16.2 cm The Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University

Walpole’s collection

4 previous page, above Thomas Sandby (1721–1798), Paul Sandby (1731–1809) and Edward Edwards (1738–1806), The Gallery at Strawberry Hill, c.1769 and 1781 Watercolour, 57.7 × 78.7 cm Victoria and Albert Museum, London, D.1837-1904 5 previous page, below John Carter (1748–1817), The Great North Bedchamber at Strawberry Hill, c.1788 Watercolour, 23 × 29 cm The Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University, Folio 33 30, copy 11, fol. 2042

Walpole wrote to Horace Mann in November 1741 while furnishing an apartment in Downing Street with souvenirs from his Grand Tour: ‘You can’t think what a closet I have fitted up! Such a mixture of French gaiety and Roman virtu!’ Young Horace describes here the two main components of his taste, French gaieté or rococo style – especially for applied arts and furniture – and virtu, small objects fancied by eighteenth-century connoisseurs for their craftsmanship, preciousness and beauty. In the latter case Walpole refers to classical objects such as cameos, engraved stones, small archaeological artefacts, coins and medals collected during the Grand Tour. The dual influences of French rococo and Roman classicism, which also reflected the taste, respectively, of his mother and father, were the two poles between which Walpole’s creativity took place, while the experience of the Grand Tour itself was the birthplace of the approach to the arts and visual matters that Walpole was to realise at Strawberry Hill.

Walpole’s parents were both collectors, and their individual tastes and collecting strategies inevitably had a great impact on those of their son. At Strawberry Hill, the Round Drawing Room was inspired by Robert Walpole’s taste, while the Tribune was devoted to the memory of Horace’s mother. Horace was Catherine’s last and most cherished child and they had enjoyed a close relationship.

Initially, Walpole’s parents seem to have been a happy couple and if not deeply in love they at least shared a taste for aristocratic habits and opulence. When Horace Walpole was seven, his father began

14 LOST TREASURES OF STRAWBERRY HILL

a long-term relationship with Maria Skerret (1702–1738), 20 years his junior. As a result, the domestic life shared by Horace and his mother was marked by his father’s frequent absences. The family lived mainly in Arlington Street, and during the summer at their villa in Chelsea, where much of Horace’s young life was spent.

According to William Coxe, writing in 1816, Catherine Shorter was ‘a woman of exquisite beauty and accomplished manners’.

A portrait engraving (fig. 6) by the artist and antiquarian George INTRODUCTION 15

spaces were imbued with the atmosphere of a gothic monastery, while the private rooms were decorated with fashionable wallpapers.

The second phase of building started in 1761 with the construction of a set of state rooms in a new wing to the west: the Gallery and Tribune in 1763, the Round Drawing Room in 1771 and the Great North Bedchamber in 1773 (figs 1, 4, 5, 8). Mainly intended for entertaining, they were designed for the public display of Walpole’s collections. Most of the walls were hung with rich textiles and the ceilings were elaborately decorated in gold. The link between the eastern and western wings was the Holbein Chamber, completed in 1759 (p. 68). It formed a transition between the gloom of the east wing, which housed the ancestral and family memorabilia, and the light-filled western rooms where works of art were on public display.

6 George Vertue (1684–1756), after Christian Friederich Zincke (1683–1767), Portrait of Catherine Walpole (née Shorter), 1748 Stipple and line engraving, 21.7 × 16.2 cm The Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University

Walpole’s collection

4 previous page, above Thomas Sandby (1721–1798), Paul Sandby (1731–1809) and Edward Edwards (1738–1806), The Gallery at Strawberry Hill, c.1769 and 1781 Watercolour, 57.7 × 78.7 cm Victoria and Albert Museum, London, D.1837-1904 5 previous page, below John Carter (1748–1817), The Great North Bedchamber at Strawberry Hill, c.1788 Watercolour, 23 × 29 cm The Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University, Folio 33 30, copy 11, fol. 2042

Walpole wrote to Horace Mann in November 1741 while furnishing an apartment in Downing Street with souvenirs from his Grand Tour: ‘You can’t think what a closet I have fitted up! Such a mixture of French gaiety and Roman virtu!’ Young Horace describes here the two main components of his taste, French gaieté or rococo style – especially for applied arts and furniture – and virtu, small objects fancied by eighteenth-century connoisseurs for their craftsmanship, preciousness and beauty. In the latter case Walpole refers to classical objects such as cameos, engraved stones, small archaeological artefacts, coins and medals collected during the Grand Tour. The dual influences of French rococo and Roman classicism, which also reflected the taste, respectively, of his mother and father, were the two poles between which Walpole’s creativity took place, while the experience of the Grand Tour itself was the birthplace of the approach to the arts and visual matters that Walpole was to realise at Strawberry Hill.

Walpole’s parents were both collectors, and their individual tastes and collecting strategies inevitably had a great impact on those of their son. At Strawberry Hill, the Round Drawing Room was inspired by Robert Walpole’s taste, while the Tribune was devoted to the memory of Horace’s mother. Horace was Catherine’s last and most cherished child and they had enjoyed a close relationship.

Initially, Walpole’s parents seem to have been a happy couple and if not deeply in love they at least shared a taste for aristocratic habits and opulence. When Horace Walpole was seven, his father began

14 LOST TREASURES OF STRAWBERRY HILL

a long-term relationship with Maria Skerret (1702–1738), 20 years his junior. As a result, the domestic life shared by Horace and his mother was marked by his father’s frequent absences. The family lived mainly in Arlington Street, and during the summer at their villa in Chelsea, where much of Horace’s young life was spent.

According to William Coxe, writing in 1816, Catherine Shorter was ‘a woman of exquisite beauty and accomplished manners’.

A portrait engraving (fig. 6) by the artist and antiquarian George INTRODUCTION 15

7 Horace Walpole (1717–1797), after Jean-Antoine Watteau (1684–1721), A Music Lesson, 1736 Watercolour, 19 × 23.4 cm The Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University, 736.00.00.06dr

Vertue (1684–1756) gives some important clues to her personality.

Made to illustrate Walpole’s first art-critical endeavour, the Aedes Walpolianae (1747), a catalogue raisonné of his father’s collection, the portrait is itself copied from a miniature by Christian Friedrich Zincke (1684–1767). Vertue enriched the image with elements celebrating Catherine’s interests and her son’s affection for her.

Garlands of flowers, shells and an incense burner represent Catherine’s fondness for Chelsea, the site of her renowned shellencrusted grotto that rivalled that of Queen Caroline, while the palette with brushes reflects her status as an amateur artist. She was particularly fond of the French painter Jean-Antoine Watteau (1684– 1721) and owned two of his works, La Boudeuse (The Capricious Girl) (p. 88), and the fascinating Artist’s Dream in which an artist is depicted dreaming of his main source of inspiration, the characters of the commedia dell’arte. One of these characters, Harlequin, was particularly resonant for Horace Walpole, appearing frequently in his correspondence, particularly in relation to his reminiscences of an idyllic, vanished childhood. Young Walpole shared his mother’s admiration of Watteau, making three juvenile copies after the master, now in the Lewis Walpole Library (see fig. 7). The two medals in Vertue’s print refer to Queen Caroline, who was a regular guest at Chelsea, and to the Roman statue of Pudicitia (modesty, chastity) 16 LOST TREASURES OF STRAWBERRY HILL

from the Villa Mattei. This statue inspired the monument to Horace’s mother in Westminster Abbey, commissioned by him from Filippo della Valle (1698–1768) in Rome (see p. 89).

Paintings and other works of art belonging to Catherine Shorter found their way into the collection at Strawberry Hill some time after her death. The Tribune housed her paintings, including Watteau’s La Boudeuse, and the room’s focal point was a centrally placed bronzed plaster model of Della Valle’s statue. Three hundred examples of blue-and-white Chinese porcelain from her collection were shown in a glazed closet between the Gallery and the Round Drawing Room.

In the summer of 1736 Horace visited Houghton Hall for the first time. His father’s great neo-Palladian country house was conceived as a celebratory monument to his social and political achievements and as a setting for his art collection. The collection was mostly formed in the two decades before, through agents (including Horace Mann in Florence) and family (especially Walpole’s elder brothers Robert and Edward, and his uncle Horatio), and through gifts. Sir Robert was inspired by princely Roman collections, which he knew only through publications and prints, as he had never travelled to Italy. The narratives of power and patronage displayed in these collections held a strong appeal for the elder Walpole.

What were the characteristics of the Roman collections that Robert Walpole most admired? By the time Sir Robert was acquiring art, the great age of the Roman Baroque – of Bernini, Borromini and Andrea da Cortona and patrons such as the Barberinis, Pamphilis and Chigis – had come to an end. But Rome was still an important cultural attraction for English tourists and the centre of a dynamic art market. The type of collection Robert Walpole sought to emulate is suggested by the large number of masterpieces by Carlo Maratta (1625–1713), ‘the divine Carlo’, which he bought from the collector Niccolò Maria Pallavicini. Giovanni Pietro Bellori, Maratta’s biographer, praised the artist because, like Raphael and Poussin, he had been able to revive the art of the ancients, promoting ideal beauty, classical proportion and simplicity in opposition to the illusory exaggerations of the Baroque. This return to classical themes and styles had been encouraged by Pallavicini and other Roman collectors, who displayed their pictures in decorative arrangements very similar to those employed by Horace Walpole at Strawberry Hill: ‘in hanging pictures, opposition makes harmony. Histories should INTRODUCTION 17

7 Horace Walpole (1717–1797), after Jean-Antoine Watteau (1684–1721), A Music Lesson, 1736 Watercolour, 19 × 23.4 cm The Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University, 736.00.00.06dr

Vertue (1684–1756) gives some important clues to her personality.

Made to illustrate Walpole’s first art-critical endeavour, the Aedes Walpolianae (1747), a catalogue raisonné of his father’s collection, the portrait is itself copied from a miniature by Christian Friedrich Zincke (1684–1767). Vertue enriched the image with elements celebrating Catherine’s interests and her son’s affection for her.

Garlands of flowers, shells and an incense burner represent Catherine’s fondness for Chelsea, the site of her renowned shellencrusted grotto that rivalled that of Queen Caroline, while the palette with brushes reflects her status as an amateur artist. She was particularly fond of the French painter Jean-Antoine Watteau (1684– 1721) and owned two of his works, La Boudeuse (The Capricious Girl) (p. 88), and the fascinating Artist’s Dream in which an artist is depicted dreaming of his main source of inspiration, the characters of the commedia dell’arte. One of these characters, Harlequin, was particularly resonant for Horace Walpole, appearing frequently in his correspondence, particularly in relation to his reminiscences of an idyllic, vanished childhood. Young Walpole shared his mother’s admiration of Watteau, making three juvenile copies after the master, now in the Lewis Walpole Library (see fig. 7). The two medals in Vertue’s print refer to Queen Caroline, who was a regular guest at Chelsea, and to the Roman statue of Pudicitia (modesty, chastity) 16 LOST TREASURES OF STRAWBERRY HILL

from the Villa Mattei. This statue inspired the monument to Horace’s mother in Westminster Abbey, commissioned by him from Filippo della Valle (1698–1768) in Rome (see p. 89).

Paintings and other works of art belonging to Catherine Shorter found their way into the collection at Strawberry Hill some time after her death. The Tribune housed her paintings, including Watteau’s La Boudeuse, and the room’s focal point was a centrally placed bronzed plaster model of Della Valle’s statue. Three hundred examples of blue-and-white Chinese porcelain from her collection were shown in a glazed closet between the Gallery and the Round Drawing Room.

In the summer of 1736 Horace visited Houghton Hall for the first time. His father’s great neo-Palladian country house was conceived as a celebratory monument to his social and political achievements and as a setting for his art collection. The collection was mostly formed in the two decades before, through agents (including Horace Mann in Florence) and family (especially Walpole’s elder brothers Robert and Edward, and his uncle Horatio), and through gifts. Sir Robert was inspired by princely Roman collections, which he knew only through publications and prints, as he had never travelled to Italy. The narratives of power and patronage displayed in these collections held a strong appeal for the elder Walpole.

What were the characteristics of the Roman collections that Robert Walpole most admired? By the time Sir Robert was acquiring art, the great age of the Roman Baroque – of Bernini, Borromini and Andrea da Cortona and patrons such as the Barberinis, Pamphilis and Chigis – had come to an end. But Rome was still an important cultural attraction for English tourists and the centre of a dynamic art market. The type of collection Robert Walpole sought to emulate is suggested by the large number of masterpieces by Carlo Maratta (1625–1713), ‘the divine Carlo’, which he bought from the collector Niccolò Maria Pallavicini. Giovanni Pietro Bellori, Maratta’s biographer, praised the artist because, like Raphael and Poussin, he had been able to revive the art of the ancients, promoting ideal beauty, classical proportion and simplicity in opposition to the illusory exaggerations of the Baroque. This return to classical themes and styles had been encouraged by Pallavicini and other Roman collectors, who displayed their pictures in decorative arrangements very similar to those employed by Horace Walpole at Strawberry Hill: ‘in hanging pictures, opposition makes harmony. Histories should INTRODUCTION 17

Virgin and Child Unknown Netherlandish artist after Bernart van Orley (c.1491/2–1542), 1676 Bodycolour on vellum laid over copper plate, 26 × 18.4 cm, in a contemporary seventeenthcentury frame with a crowned shield of France Inscribed: F. Colomb. Cap. / Del. Ping Opfer 1676

In 1784 Walpole described this work as a ‘Virgin and child, a highly finished illumination: it belonged to Gaston duke of Orleans’. The frame carries the coat of arms of the duke, who died in 1660. The upper part of the composition, showing the Virgin

and the infant Christ, dates from the early sixteenth century and was most likely painted in Brussels. The bottom section seems to have been added and possibly repainted in 1676 by the mysterious ‘F. Colomb’. The fact that the vellum is laid on copper is also very unusual.

The Rt Hon. The Earl of Derby, K471

Portrait of a Young Man as a Shepherd (‘Portrait of Abraham Cowley’) Peter Lely (1618–1680), c.1658–60 Oil on canvas, 91.4 × 75.6 cm The Dulwich Picture Gallery, London, DPG563/1911

When Walpole bought this painting at Edward Lovibond’s sale in 1776 there was no indication of the sitter’s identity. Walpole believed it to be a painting of the poet-prodigy Abraham Cowley, but Cowley would have been 40 years old at the time

54 LOST TREASURES OF STRAWBERRY HILL

this picture was made. Walpole also owned a miniature portrait by Christian Friedrich Zincke copied from this picture in 1716. In about 1783 this portrait was listed by Walpole among the ‘Principal Curiosities’ of his collection.

THE BLUE BREAKFAST ROOM 55

Virgin and Child Unknown Netherlandish artist after Bernart van Orley (c.1491/2–1542), 1676 Bodycolour on vellum laid over copper plate, 26 × 18.4 cm, in a contemporary seventeenthcentury frame with a crowned shield of France Inscribed: F. Colomb. Cap. / Del. Ping Opfer 1676

In 1784 Walpole described this work as a ‘Virgin and child, a highly finished illumination: it belonged to Gaston duke of Orleans’. The frame carries the coat of arms of the duke, who died in 1660. The upper part of the composition, showing the Virgin

and the infant Christ, dates from the early sixteenth century and was most likely painted in Brussels. The bottom section seems to have been added and possibly repainted in 1676 by the mysterious ‘F. Colomb’. The fact that the vellum is laid on copper is also very unusual.

The Rt Hon. The Earl of Derby, K471

Portrait of a Young Man as a Shepherd (‘Portrait of Abraham Cowley’) Peter Lely (1618–1680), c.1658–60 Oil on canvas, 91.4 × 75.6 cm The Dulwich Picture Gallery, London, DPG563/1911

When Walpole bought this painting at Edward Lovibond’s sale in 1776 there was no indication of the sitter’s identity. Walpole believed it to be a painting of the poet-prodigy Abraham Cowley, but Cowley would have been 40 years old at the time

54 LOST TREASURES OF STRAWBERRY HILL

this picture was made. Walpole also owned a miniature portrait by Christian Friedrich Zincke copied from this picture in 1716. In about 1783 this portrait was listed by Walpole among the ‘Principal Curiosities’ of his collection.

THE BLUE BREAKFAST ROOM 55

The Green Closet

Table en chiffoniere à plaque de porcelaine Attributed to Roger Vandercruse Lacroix (1728–1799), 1763 Sèvres porcelain plaque, signed by Etienne Henry Le Guay (1719–1799) H. 70 cm Private collection

During the reign of Louis XV of France, occasional tables of this type were very popular, especially in fashionable households. Roger Vandercruse was a highly skilled Parisian cabinet-maker, specialising in meubles volants, small pieces of furniture that could be moved about to suit the activities of the moment.

Walpole most probably bought this table in Paris in 1766 from the marchand mercier Simon-Philippe Poirier. The design of the carpet in the Round Drawing Room was copied from the top of this table.

Adjacent to the Blue Breakfast Room was the Green Closet, a small room probably completed in 1748 and hung with distinctive green flock paper made by the wallpaper manufacturer Thomas Bromwich of Ludgate Hill. The closet was Walpole’s study; in the cupboards he kept the 40 original notebooks made by George Vertue on which Walpole’s Anecdotes of Painting was based.

The walls were filled with 138 works of art, many on paper, including watercolour landscapes and 56 LOST TREASURES OF STRAWBERRY HILL

portraits. There were 21 unusually small tempera depictions of Roman ruins by Andrea Locatelli (1695–1741) and a series of Medici duchesses painted after Jacopo Ligozzi (1547–1627). Among the oil paintings were, above the door, A View of Alexander Pope’s House at Twickenham by Samuel Scott (c.1702–1772) and two market scenes

by Peter Angelis (1685–1734). The room also contained a small table with a Sèvres porcelain top and two kittens carved in marble by Anne Damer.

THE GREEN CLOSET 57

The Green Closet

Table en chiffoniere à plaque de porcelaine Attributed to Roger Vandercruse Lacroix (1728–1799), 1763 Sèvres porcelain plaque, signed by Etienne Henry Le Guay (1719–1799) H. 70 cm Private collection

During the reign of Louis XV of France, occasional tables of this type were very popular, especially in fashionable households. Roger Vandercruse was a highly skilled Parisian cabinet-maker, specialising in meubles volants, small pieces of furniture that could be moved about to suit the activities of the moment.

Walpole most probably bought this table in Paris in 1766 from the marchand mercier Simon-Philippe Poirier. The design of the carpet in the Round Drawing Room was copied from the top of this table.

Adjacent to the Blue Breakfast Room was the Green Closet, a small room probably completed in 1748 and hung with distinctive green flock paper made by the wallpaper manufacturer Thomas Bromwich of Ludgate Hill. The closet was Walpole’s study; in the cupboards he kept the 40 original notebooks made by George Vertue on which Walpole’s Anecdotes of Painting was based.

The walls were filled with 138 works of art, many on paper, including watercolour landscapes and 56 LOST TREASURES OF STRAWBERRY HILL

portraits. There were 21 unusually small tempera depictions of Roman ruins by Andrea Locatelli (1695–1741) and a series of Medici duchesses painted after Jacopo Ligozzi (1547–1627). Among the oil paintings were, above the door, A View of Alexander Pope’s House at Twickenham by Samuel Scott (c.1702–1772) and two market scenes

by Peter Angelis (1685–1734). The room also contained a small table with a Sèvres porcelain top and two kittens carved in marble by Anne Damer.

THE GREEN CLOSET 57

Portrait of Bianca Capello Unknown artist after Jacopo Ligozzi (1547–1627), 1610 From a set of six. Pencil and watercolour on paper, 33.7 × 19.8 cm The Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University

This portrait is in a group of six that includes depictions of Eleanor of Toledo with her son; Christina of Lorraine; Maria Magdalena of Austria; Joanna of Austria; Bianca Capello; and Mary of Medici with Louis XIII. The group was given to Walpole by Horace Mann. They are copied from paramenti, wallhangings of red velvet and gold on which were appliqued life-sized portraits in fabric, embellished with jewels. The originals were made for a room in the Casino di San Marco in Florence. It has recently been shown that these paramenti, destroyed in 1760, were commissioned by the Grand Duke Francesco I de Medici and made by the artist Jacopo Ligozzi.

A View of Mr Pope’s House at Twickenham Samuel Scott (c.1702–1772), c.1759 Oil on canvas, 47.6 × 90.8 cm The Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University

In 1747 Walpole was pleased to discover that his newly acquired house at Strawberry Hill was very close to the poet Alexander Pope’s (1688–1744) famous riverside villa, which was visible from Walpole’s garden. Walpole was a champion of the painter Samuel Scott, ‘the English Canaletto’, who lived nearby.

58 LOST TREASURES OF STRAWBERRY HILL

THE GREEN CLOSET 59

Portrait of Bianca Capello Unknown artist after Jacopo Ligozzi (1547–1627), 1610 From a set of six. Pencil and watercolour on paper, 33.7 × 19.8 cm The Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University

This portrait is in a group of six that includes depictions of Eleanor of Toledo with her son; Christina of Lorraine; Maria Magdalena of Austria; Joanna of Austria; Bianca Capello; and Mary of Medici with Louis XIII. The group was given to Walpole by Horace Mann. They are copied from paramenti, wallhangings of red velvet and gold on which were appliqued life-sized portraits in fabric, embellished with jewels. The originals were made for a room in the Casino di San Marco in Florence. It has recently been shown that these paramenti, destroyed in 1760, were commissioned by the Grand Duke Francesco I de Medici and made by the artist Jacopo Ligozzi.

A View of Mr Pope’s House at Twickenham Samuel Scott (c.1702–1772), c.1759 Oil on canvas, 47.6 × 90.8 cm The Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University

In 1747 Walpole was pleased to discover that his newly acquired house at Strawberry Hill was very close to the poet Alexander Pope’s (1688–1744) famous riverside villa, which was visible from Walpole’s garden. Walpole was a champion of the painter Samuel Scott, ‘the English Canaletto’, who lived nearby.

58 LOST TREASURES OF STRAWBERRY HILL

THE GREEN CLOSET 59

Portrait of Sarah Malcolm in Prison William Hogarth (1697–1764), 1733 Oil on canvas, 48.8 × 38.7 cm National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh, NG 838

In 1733 William Hogarth sketched Sarah Malcolm, a multiple murderer, days before she was executed. Hers was a gruesome criminal case that gained great notoriety at the time. Walpole, who secured this small painting at Hogarth’s sale for 5 guineas, described the artist in his Anecdotes of Painting as ‘that great and original genius’. In 1750 Walpole commissioned Hogarth to paint the portrait of another prisoner, King Theodore of Corsica, who was held at the King’s Bench Prison for debt.

An Unknown Boy, formerly called Henry, Prince of Wales Isaac Oliver (1565–1617), c.1590 Pencil and coloured chalks on paper, 19.3 × 14.5 cm Trustees of the Ninth Duke of Buccleuch’s Chattels Fund

Walpole hugely admired the work of Isaac Oliver, who in his view had no rivals: ‘The art of the master and the imitation of nature are so great in it, that the largest magnifying glass only calls out new beauties’, Walpole wrote in his Anecdotes of Painting. In his view, only Oliver’s son Peter could approach him in artistic skill.

60 LOST TREASURES OF STRAWBERRY HILL

THE GREEN CLOSET 61

Portrait of Sarah Malcolm in Prison William Hogarth (1697–1764), 1733 Oil on canvas, 48.8 × 38.7 cm National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh, NG 838

In 1733 William Hogarth sketched Sarah Malcolm, a multiple murderer, days before she was executed. Hers was a gruesome criminal case that gained great notoriety at the time. Walpole, who secured this small painting at Hogarth’s sale for 5 guineas, described the artist in his Anecdotes of Painting as ‘that great and original genius’. In 1750 Walpole commissioned Hogarth to paint the portrait of another prisoner, King Theodore of Corsica, who was held at the King’s Bench Prison for debt.

An Unknown Boy, formerly called Henry, Prince of Wales Isaac Oliver (1565–1617), c.1590 Pencil and coloured chalks on paper, 19.3 × 14.5 cm Trustees of the Ninth Duke of Buccleuch’s Chattels Fund

Walpole hugely admired the work of Isaac Oliver, who in his view had no rivals: ‘The art of the master and the imitation of nature are so great in it, that the largest magnifying glass only calls out new beauties’, Walpole wrote in his Anecdotes of Painting. In his view, only Oliver’s son Peter could approach him in artistic skill.

60 LOST TREASURES OF STRAWBERRY HILL

THE GREEN CLOSET 61

The Blue Bedchamber

The Blue Bedchamber was completed in 1754 and hung with plain blue paper. It contained a set of seven paintings by John Giles Eccardt (1720–1779), commissioned by Walpole to portray some of his closest friends and immediate family.

Eccardt, a German-born British painter, was employed by Walpole either to paint portraits or to copy those he couldn’t obtain. With two exceptions the portraits in the Blue Bedchamber were based 62 LOST TREASURES OF STRAWBERRY HILL

on famous pictorial sources. Those of Walpole, the poet Thomas Gray and Richard Bentley were derived from prints by Anthony van Dyck, while those of the Churchill and Conway families were taken from Rubens and Watteau. All were in real or replica seventeenth-century frames. The chimney piece was designed by Bentley, and small Sèvres pieces – cream cups, cups and saucers and small flower pots – were displayed on its mantelpiece.

Portrait of Horace Walpole John Giles Eccardt (1720–1779), 1754 Oil on canvas, 39.4 × 31.8 cm National Portrait Gallery, London, NPG 988

This portrait was based on a print of the painter Simon Vouet by Anthony van Dyck. Walpole is holding a copy of the Aedes Walpolianae, his catalogue of his father’s collection at Houghton Hall. Together with his own portrait, Walpole commissioned Eccardt to paint portraits of his family and friends for the Blue Bedchamber,

including Richard Bentley and Thomas Gray. The three friends are portrayed in typical ‘Van Dyck’ costumes. At this period, Van Dyck’s costumes were often associated with masquerades, romantic attitudes and dreamy escapism, characteristics that fitted well with gothic revivalism.

THE BLUE BEDCHAMBER 63

The Blue Bedchamber

The Blue Bedchamber was completed in 1754 and hung with plain blue paper. It contained a set of seven paintings by John Giles Eccardt (1720–1779), commissioned by Walpole to portray some of his closest friends and immediate family.

Eccardt, a German-born British painter, was employed by Walpole either to paint portraits or to copy those he couldn’t obtain. With two exceptions the portraits in the Blue Bedchamber were based 62 LOST TREASURES OF STRAWBERRY HILL

on famous pictorial sources. Those of Walpole, the poet Thomas Gray and Richard Bentley were derived from prints by Anthony van Dyck, while those of the Churchill and Conway families were taken from Rubens and Watteau. All were in real or replica seventeenth-century frames. The chimney piece was designed by Bentley, and small Sèvres pieces – cream cups, cups and saucers and small flower pots – were displayed on its mantelpiece.

Portrait of Horace Walpole John Giles Eccardt (1720–1779), 1754 Oil on canvas, 39.4 × 31.8 cm National Portrait Gallery, London, NPG 988

This portrait was based on a print of the painter Simon Vouet by Anthony van Dyck. Walpole is holding a copy of the Aedes Walpolianae, his catalogue of his father’s collection at Houghton Hall. Together with his own portrait, Walpole commissioned Eccardt to paint portraits of his family and friends for the Blue Bedchamber,

including Richard Bentley and Thomas Gray. The three friends are portrayed in typical ‘Van Dyck’ costumes. At this period, Van Dyck’s costumes were often associated with masquerades, romantic attitudes and dreamy escapism, characteristics that fitted well with gothic revivalism.

THE BLUE BEDCHAMBER 63

Portrait Miniature of Katherine Howard Hans Holbein the Younger (1497–1543), 1540–41. Watercolour on vellum, diam. 5.3 cm. Trustees of the Ninth Duke of Buccleuch’s Chattels Fund Portrait of George, 3rd Earl of Orford Jean-Etienne Liotard (1702–1789), 1751. Watercolour on ivory, H. 6.4 cm. Houghton Hall, Norfolk Portrait of an Unknown Woman (‘Wife of Cornelis van Poelenburgh’) Unknown artist, 1631. Oil on copper, 14.6 × 11.5 cm. Victoria and Albert Museum, London (P.104-1931)

Bust of an Emperor (Caligula?)

Roman. Bronze and stone, H. 16 cm. Earl of Wemyss and March, Gosford House, East Lothian Flora Farnese After the Antique, Italian, eighteenth century. Bronze, H. 59 cm.

Private collection Hand of Sabazius, see p. 90 Venus de Medici After the Antique, Italian, late eigtheenth century. Bronze, H. 60 cm. Tomasso Brothers Fine Art, London

Portrait Miniature of an Unknown Man (‘Cornelis van Poelenburgh’) Unknown artist, c.1630. Oil on copper, 22 × 18.5 cm. Victoria and Albert Museum, London (P.105-1931)

Pudicity, also known as Faustina (‘Catherine Shorter’) Unknown artist, see p. 89

Portrait of Charlotte de Trémouille Dutch school, eighteenth century.

Oil on canvas, 39.1 × 29.4 cm.

The Rt Hon. The Earl of Derby

Casket Giovanni Battista Foggini (1652–1725), Opificio delle Pietre Dure, Florence, c.1720. Gilt bronzemounted ebony and hardstone marquetry, L. 42.5 cm. Galerie Kugel, Paris

Self-Portrait of Sir Godfrey Kneller when Young Godfrey Kneller (1646–1723), c.1685.

Oil on copper, 8.25 × 5.7 cm.

The Rt Hon. The Earl of Derby Self-Portrait Miniature Jean-Etienne Liotard (c.1702–1789), c.1765–7. Gouache on vellum, 4.1 × 3.8 cm. The Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University A Tyrolean Girl (Sartori), see p. 86 Apollo Belvedere After the Antique, Franco-Italian, late seventeenth–early eighteenth century. Bronze, H. 53.5 cm.

Tomasso Brothers Fine Art, London Artemis of Ephesus Roman. Serpentine stone, H. 22 cm. Earl of Wemyss and March, Gosford House, East Lothian

Cabinet of miniatures and enamels, see p. 91

Casket (‘Master KIP’), see p. 94 Carved cravat (Gibbons), see p. 85 Hair of Mary Tudor, see p. 103 Letter to Horace Walpole from Madame du Deffand under the name of Madame de Sévigné Marie-Anne de Vichy Chamrond, marquise du Deffand de La Lande (1697­–1780), May 1766.

The Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University Madame du Deffand’s snuff box with a portrait of Tonton Louis Roucel (d. 1787) and Isaac Gosset (1713–1799), c.1777.

Silver gilt over brass with the portrait in wax, L. 7 cm. The Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University

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Rosary beads Portuguese, c.1700. Mounted in silver filigree, with a silver medal.

Strawberry Hill Collection Trust

Comb (‘Queen Bertha’s Comb’), see p. 100

Snuff box with a portrait miniature of Madame de Sévigné Joseph Gibert (active 1759), 1765.

Gold and lacquered ivory, diam. 7 cm.

The Trustees of the Waldegrave Chattels Trust

Pair of flower tubs (Wedgwood), see p. 101

The Great North Bedchamber The Family of Henry VIII: An Allegory of the Tudor Succession (de Heere), see p. 97 Portrait of Elizabeth Butler, Countess of Chesterfield Peter Lely (1618–1680), c.1660.

Oil on canvas, 123.8 × 102.2 cm.

The Administrative Trustees of the Chevening Estate, Kent Portrait of Mademoiselle Hamilton, Comtesse de Gramont John Giles Eccardt (1720–1779), after Peter Lely (1618–1680), mideigtheenth century. Oil on canvas, 76.2 × 62.2 cm. National Portrait Gallery, London (NPG 20) Portrait of King Henry VIII and Emperor Charles V Flemish School, mid-sixteenth century. Oil on panel, 72 × 93 cm. Private collection Portrait of an Unknown Lady (formerly called Henrietta Maria, duchess of Orleans) Attributed to Theodore Russell (1614–1689), mid-seventeenth century. The Rt Hon. The Earl of Derby Portrait of Margaret Smith, Wife of Thomas Carye Anthony van Dyck (1599–1641), c.1636. Oil on canvas, 217 × 130 cm.

Private Collection Sketch for ‘The Beggar’s Opera’ Unknown artist, after William Hogarth (1697–1764), c.1728. Oil on canvas, 45.7 × 53.3 cm. The Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University

Dr Dee’s Mirror, see p. 100

Pair of gauntlet gloves (‘The Gloves of King James I’) English, c.1610–25. Leather trimmed with silk and metallic embroidery, L. 44 cm. Gloves Collections Trust, Courtesy of the Fashion Museum, Bath and North East Somerset Council (BATMC GLO23337) Jug (‘A crystal tankard and cover’), see p. 98 Three spice plates, see p. 99 The Beauclerk Closet Illuminated psalter (Psalter of the Prince d’Anjou), see p. 104 Six illustrations for Horace Walpole’s tragedy The Mysterious Mother (Beauclerk), see p. 105 View of the Lesser Arch designed and erected by General Henry Seymour Conway at Park Place Paul Sandby (1731–1809), 1781.

Watercolour, 49 × 36.2 cm.

Private collection