The pictures which now constitute the private gallery of her Majesty at
Buckingham Palace, were principally collected by George the Fourth,
whose exclusive predilection for pictures of the Dutch and Flemish
schools is well known. To those which he brought together here, and
which formerly hung in Carlton House, her present Majesty has made,
since her accession, many valuable additions--some purchased, and others
selected from the royal collections at Windsor and Hampton Court; others
have been added by Prince Albert, from the collection of the late
Professor d’Alton, of Bonn. * * * George IV. began to form his
collection about the year 1802, and was chiefly guided by the advice and
judgment of Sir Charles Long, afterwards Lord Farnborough, an
accomplished man, whose taste for art, and intimacy with the king, then
Prince of Wales, rendered him a very fit person to carry the royal
wishes into execution. The importation of the Orleans gallery had
diffused a feeling--or, it may be, a _fashion_--for the higher specimens
of the Italian schools, but under the auspices of George IV. the tide
set in an opposite direction. In the year 1812, the very select gallery
of Flemish and Dutch pictures collected by Sir Francis Baring was
transferred by purchase to the Prince Regent. Sir Francis Baring had
purchased the best pictures from the collections of M. Geldermeester of
Amsterdam, (sold in 1800,) and that of the Countess of Holderness, (sold
in 1802,) and, except the Hope Gallery, there was nothing at that time
to compare with it in England. Mr. Seguier valued this collection at
eighty thousand pounds; but the exact sum paid for it was certainly much
less.
The specimens of Rubens and Van Dyck are excellent, but do not present
sufficient variety to afford an adequate idea of the wide range or power
of the first of these great painters, nor of the particular talent of
the last. On the other hand, the works and style of Gerard Douw,
Teniers, Jan Steen, Adrian and Wilhelm Vandevelde, Wouvermans, and
Burghem, may be very advantageously studied in this gallery, each of
their specimens being many in number, various in subject, and good in
their kind. Of Mieris and Metzes, there are finer specimens at Mr.
Hope’s and Sir Robert Peel’s; and the Hobbimas and Cuyps must yield to
those of Lord Ashburton and Lord Francis Egerton. But, on the whole, it
is certainly the finest gallery of this class of works in England. The
collection derives additional interest from the presence of some
pictures of the modern British artists--Reynolds, Wilkie, Allan, Newton,
Gainsborough. It is, however, only just to these painters to add, that
not one of their pictures here ought to be considered as a first-rate
example of their power.--_Mrs. Jameson._