Had its origin in the Orleans Gallery. The Italian part of the
collection had been mortgaged for 40,000_l._ to Harman’s banking-house,
when Mr. Bryan, a celebrated collector and picture-dealer, and author of
the “Dictionary of Painters,” induced the Duke of Bridgewater to
purchase the whole as it stood for 43,000_l._ The pictures, amounting to
305, were then valued separately by Mr. Bryan, making a total of
72,000_l._; and from among them the Duke selected ninety-four of the
finest, at the prices at which they were valued, amounting altogether to
39,000 guineas. The Duke subsequently admitted his nephew, the Earl
Gower, and the Earl of Carlisle, to share his acquisition; resigning to
the former a fourth part, and to the latter an eighth of the whole
number thus acquired. The exhibition and sale of the rest produced
41,000_l._; consequently, the speculation turned out most profitably;
for the ninety-four pictures, which had been valued at 39,000_l._, were
acquired, in fact, for 2000_l._ The forty-seven retained for the Duke of
Bridgewater were valued at 23,130_l._ * * The Duke of Bridgewater
already possessed some fine pictures, and after the acquisition of his
share of the Orleans Gallery, he continued to add largely to his
collection, till his death in 1803, when he left his pictures, valued at
150,000_l._, to his nephew, George, first Marquis of Stafford,
afterwards first Duke of Sutherland. During the life of this nobleman,
the collection, added to one formed by himself when Earl Gower, was
placed in the house in Cleveland-row; and the whole known then, and for
thirty years afterwards, as the Stafford Gallery, became celebrated all
over Europe. On the death of the Marquis of Stafford, in 1833, his
second son, Lord Francis Leveson Gower, taking the surname of Egerton,
inherited, under the will of his grand-uncle, the Bridgewater property,
including the collection of pictures formed by the Duke. The Stafford
Gallery was thus divided: that part of the collection which had been
acquired by the Marquis of Stafford fell to his eldest son, the present
Duke of Sutherland; while the Bridgewater collection, properly so
called, devolved to Lord Francis Egerton, and has resumed its original
appellation, being now known as the Bridgewater Gallery. This gallery
has a great attraction, owing principally to the taste of its present
possessor: it contains some excellent works of modern English painters.
Near to the famous “Rising of the Gale,” by Van de Velde, hangs the
“Gale at Sea,” by Turner, not less sublime, not less true to the
grandeur and the modesty of nature; and by Edwin Landseer, the beautiful
original of a composition which the art of the engraver has made
familiar to the eye, the “Return of the Hawking Party,” a picture which
has all the romance of poetry and the antique time, and all the charm
and value of a family picture. Nor should be passed, without particular
notice, one of the most celebrated productions of the modern French
historical school--“Charles I. in the Guard Room,” by Paul Delaroche; a
truly grand picture, which Lord Francis Egerton has added to the Gallery
since 1838.--_Mrs. Jameson._