Russian Art Treasures

Hokitika Guardian, 5 July 1921, Page 3

Russian Art Treasures

HOW ENGLAND LOST THEMA recent cable message stated that the Hermitage Gallery at Petrogrud has been reopened, and that all tlm paintings it contained, save a few unimportant ones, arc hung tlmrc again. At one time it was feared that tins collection, including as it does main of the world’s most celebrated canvasses, among them the works of Titian. Vandyck, Remembrandt, Velasquez, and Murillo, had been -eat to red. an:! many of them probably destroyed. Thanks, however, to the efforts of Maxim Gorky and Lunnteharsky, *'the people’s commission for public entertainment/’ the Hermitage collection, which was removed to Moscow and hidden in the spring of 1918. is now pronounced to be unharmed.

Few people, perhaps, realise that the nucleus of the art collection at (he Hermitage, which adjoins the V intei Palace at- Petrogrnd' was collected and brought to England frejm Italy by Horace Walpole, and later fourth Earl of Oxford. This collection was mr'V

possible through the dual efforts of SiHorace Mann, at one time .British Consul at Florence, end Howe V :• 1 . pole, the men being cousins and intimates of like tastes. Sir Horace. Mann like Horace Walpole, was not only an art lover, but a discriminating connoisseur. who watched eagerly for all bargains in works of art. This, it must be remembered, was before Ttalv prohibited great art treasures leaving that country. Tims it was easy for HoJrnce Walpole, generously Supplin' 1 ns he was with funds by bis fattier, who obtained bis wealth by numcrons find diverse methods, some of which would hardly bear (Jose scrutiny, ter purchase the wonderful collection which found a resting place in the stately home .el Sir Hobart Walpole. Horace was unmarried and did not possess the hack ground, so to speak, in his own homo at Strawberry Hill, which was, by the wav afterwards burned.

Upon the death of Sir Robert Walpole the estate went to Edward. Horace Walpole’s elder brother, a man ;>-■ dell as Hornet* was brilliant. Edward knew nothing of art. and eared less. After the death of the father n frond we"; - 1 Horace that Edward was negotiating for the sale of the collection of Catherine TI of Russia. Horace offered to buy tlic pictures from bis brother who denied any intention of selling. Shortly afterwards, however the collection which numbered 198 pictures was sold to Catherine for the sum of 175.000 dollars, the paintings being replaced in the Walpole home by a lot of commonplace pictures painted to (it the panels of the apartments at Houghton Hall.

Three years after this event Edward Walpole, third Earl of Orfnrd. died, and he was succeeded by Horace, but Houghton Hall, when he entered it ; s master, was in respect to art an empty shell.-- Toronto “Saturday Night.”