MacColl in his catalogue of the pictures, is interesting, not only
as showing Lord Hertford’s great personal interest in art and the
extraordinary difference in prices between now and then, but also as
revealing at least one charming side in a character which, owing to its
eccentricity, was, I honestly believe, cruelly maligned. No mere selfish
voluptuary, such as Lord Hertford was described by the evil tongues of
those who did not know him, could have inspired the affection which was
felt for him by those who did. Sir Richard Wallace more than once spoke
to me of him in terms of the strongest respect and affection, and, on
the other hand, his gratitude to Sir Richard is expressed with pathetic
feeling in the codicil to his will of June 7th, 1850: “To reward as
much as I can Richard Wallace for all his care and attention to my dear
mother, and likewise for his devotedness to me during a long and painful
illness I had in Paris in 1840, and on all other occasions, I give
such residue to the said Richard Wallace now living at the Hôtel des
Bains, Boulogne-sur-Mer, in France, and whose domicile previous to the
Revolution of 1848 was in my mother’s house, Rue Taitbout No. 3, formerly
No. 1, absolutely.”
The man who wrote those words had a heart. The letters to Mawson are
often worded as if he—Mawson—were conferring the most signal favours upon
his employer. The most formal commissions of the earlier days of their
connection soon grew to be letters of absolute affectionate gratitude.
Lord Hertford had the most complete confidence in the judgment, taste
and good faith of his agent. Well might he trust him, for Aladdin was
not more faithfully served by the slaves of the ring and the lamp. But
it is only a kindly nature and sweet disposition which is capable of
dealing with a subordinate without the slightest tinge of patronizing
condescension. Two or three examples will suffice to show the nature of
the intimacy between the employer and the employed.
The Duke of Buckingham’s sale at Stowe, in 1848, created an immense
sensation. I remember it well, for although I was only eleven years old,
I used to hear much art talk even in those days between my father and his
friends. It is the subject of a characteristic letter from Lord Hertford
to Mawson, quoted by Mr. MacColl, dated September 10th, 1848; it was
written from Boulogne:
“I intended being at Stowe on the fifteenth, but I find that
it is not certain whether I shall be able to attend the sale
on that day. I think we must have the ‘Unmerciful Servant,’ by
Rembrandt, and hope the price will not be as unmerciful as the
subject; but you know that I place all confidence in you, and
depend upon your kindness on this occasion.
“The Rembrandt and the Domenichino are my favourites, and I
depend upon you for doing the best. Pray have the kindness
not to mention to anybody that you buy on my account. I am
very anxious my name should not appear. In the event of my
being in time for the sale, you would see me there, and my
hat would play the same part it has already acted in similar
circumstances.”
On September 24th, Lord Hertford wrote to thank Mr. Mawson for the
transaction, adding: “I hope and trust we have not paid our pictures much
too dear. I am very glad you like them, as I have a very high opinion of
your judgment.”
The great Rembrandt was bought for two thousand three hundred pounds.
What would it fetch to-day?
In July, 1855, the contents of St. Dunstan’s, in the Regent’s Park, were
sold, and were the subject of the enclosed letters:
“Rue Lafitte, Paris.
“July 5th, 1855.
“There are a few things I should like to have at the sale of my
father’s villa in the Regent’s Park on the 9th inst.”
* * * * *
“Paris, July 6th, 1855.
“In anticipation that you will have the kindness to attend the
sale at the Regent’s Park for me, and having no time to spare,
I send you the list of things I wish to have, and that I hope
you will have the kindness to buy for me:
“PICTURES.
“118. P. Veronese—Not more than £40 or £50.
“120. Ruysdael—What you think it is worth and a little more.
“122. Northcote—‘Portrait of George IV. when Prince of Wales.’
I am anxious to have it.”
* * * * *
“Paris, July 20th, 1855.
“I am extremely obliged to you for having had the kindness to
buy my ‘caprices’ at the Regent’s Park sale. You did it all
beautifully and just what I wished. I depend on your usual
kindness for having the ‘Prince of Wales’’ portrait repaired
for me. I rather regret the landscape (_i.e._, the Ruysdael),
though an indifferent picture, because it was in my room when I
was a boy a few years ago. What prices people give now for all
these old affairs! It is ridiculous!”
Only once does Lord Hertford sound a note of disquiet at the price paid
by his commissioner, and that was for the famous portrait by Velasquez
of “Don Baltasar Carlos in Infancy,” which fetched £1,680 at the Louis
Philippe sale at Christie’s in May, 1853. He writes:
“As for the Velasquez, I do not remember it at all, _ainsi je
ne puis rien dire_. What frightens me is that it appears never
to have struck me at the Louvre, as I do not remember it at
all. You gave a _prodigious_ price for it, but as I have great
confidence in your taste and judgment, as well as in everything
else, I dare say I shall like it, and I long to have a look at
it, which I hope soon to be able to do.”
It was certainly not a bad investment at the _prodigious_ price.
Other letters are full of the most flattering expressions:
“April 11th, 1856.
“I have only a moment to thank you a thousand times for your
great kindness in giving me some details of the Sibthorpe sale.”
* * * * *
“April 23rd, 1856.
“A thousand thanks for your kindness.”
But these expressions are too numerous to quote; still, I will give one
more because it really testifies to something like friendship.
Writing from Paris, December 11th, 1863, Lord Hertford says:
“I was in hopes that I should have had the pleasure of seeing
you in Brussels something like a couple of months ago. There
was a goodish portrait by Rubens that I bought. I shall be
delighted to show it you some day, and I hope you will like it.”
Certainly Lord Hertford was a great gentleman, one whom it must have been
a pleasure to serve.
It is easy to imagine the _sava indignatio_ of Lord Hertford if he could
come to life again and see “the prices which people give now for these
old affairs.” Money could hardly have been better invested than it was
by himself, his father and his grandfather, when they paid what were
deemed wild sums for their works of art. Fancy Sir Joshua’s “Nellie
O’Brien” being bought by the second Marquess for £64 1s. at the Caleb
Whitefoord sale. Think of the third Marquess buying Vandyck’s “Young
Italian Nobleman,” a glorious portrait of the Genoese period, for £409
10s. In the second half of the nineteenth century prices went up madly,
but, even so, Lord Hertford, when he gave £1,795 10s. for “Mrs. Carnac,”
was purchasing gold for silver. Why, the first state of the mezzotint
engraving of that picture by J. R. Smith was sold a few years ago, if I
remember aright, for eleven hundred guineas. For the “Strawberry Girl”
the price paid at the Rogers sale was £2,205. “No man,” said Sir Joshua,
“could ever produce more than half a dozen original works, and that is
one of mine.”
Lord Hertford was delighted with the acquisition. He wrote to Mawson:
“You have done admirably, and I return you most sincere thanks
for your kindness. The ‘Strawberry,’ is dear. I should be sorry
to have a large basket at _that_ price; but it seems it is
beautiful, and in this affair, as in others, I have completely
followed your good advice, and you have added to my collection
pictures I have never seen, which shows, more than words can
express, the great and friendly confidence I have in you. I am
sure I shall be delighted with what you have acquired. I am
very sorry your honourable name was not coupled with our ‘Girl’
when she was knocked down. It is not fair that you should not
enjoy the little glory of having secured in a gallant manner
the gem of this interesting sale, so you are at full liberty to
use my name with yours respecting this painting. Was it not an
immense price? I don’t regret it at all; on the contrary, I am
delighted to have so fine a Sir Joshua, as I am extremely fond
of them, and they cannot always be had when wanted.”
Another notable picture bought at the Rogers sale was the “Don Baltasar
Carlos in the Riding School,” by Velasquez, for which Mawson paid £1,210
1s. A wonderful bargain at the Stowe sale was Murillo’s “Assumption of
the Virgin,” knocked down for £58 16s.
I have no space to go into details, but we can form some idea of the
value of these purchases when we see that Lord Hertford bought five of
the very finest Sir Joshuas for £7,974 5s. The six finest Rembrandts
cost him £5,453 15s.; five of the best Watteaus, £2,037. What superb
investments—to speak of no others!
It is something of an anti-climax to find Lord Hertford giving £4,000,
and Sir Richard Wallace £2,400, for works by Ary Scheffer. Well might
Lord Hertford write to Mawson in 1853: “You know, fancy has a great deal
to do with pictures as with anything else.” £1,680—a “_prodigious_ price”
for a Velasquez! £4,000—given without hesitation for a picture by that
most namby-pamby of artists, Ary Scheffer!
The desire to surround himself with beautiful works of art was one of
the crimes laid to the charge of Lord Hertford. He was extravagant, he
was selfish. As to the first of these accusations, the prices which he
paid were surely no more than what was permissible to a man with an
income of nearly a quarter of a million sterling; and, as I have shown,
from the mere investor’s point of view the money was well laid out. As
for the cry of selfishness, what could be more natural than that a man
endowed with the most refined taste and judgment, debarred by health no
less than by inclination, from the more active relaxations in which rich
men find pleasure—the turf, sport of all kinds, hunting, and, of late
years certainly, shooting, should be captivated by the excitement of the
auction-rooms. It was in them that he found the pleasures of the chase.
He was deprived of much, and it were scurvy treatment to reproach him for
what harmed no living being at the time, but has ended by giving joy to
millions of his countrymen. The amusement with which he solaced long days
and years of physical pain, aching under a complaint which notoriously
affects the spirits perhaps more than any other, has borne fruit for
which we should be grateful, even though it be only indirectly that we
owe it to him. He might fairly have written in his will like Bacon:
“For my name and memory, I leave it to men’s charitable speeches and to
foreign nations, and to the next age.” We are “the next age”; it behoves
us to be not only just but generous. To our shame we have been neither.
There can be very few men now alive who knew Richard Lord Hertford
personally. From Lord Esher, who as a youth did know him, I have a
letter, which he very kindly allows me to quote, giving more than one of
those little intimate touches which lend a spice to narration. But it
does more than that. It furnishes direct evidence of the truth of what I
have written about the calumnies by which Lord Hertford’s character was
poisoned by people for whom his chief crime was that he did not choose to
know them. Is it likely, is it even possible, that two ladies in a high
position like Lord Esher’s grandmother and mother should have visited
him in the Rue Lafitte and in the much-talked-of Bagatelle had those
vile slanders been true? The story of Sir Richard Wallace’s birth and
upbringing is conclusive.
Let the letter speak for itself.
“Roman Camp, Callander.
“March 17th, 1916.
“MY DEAR REDESDALE,
“I remember being taken, by my grandmother, to tea with Richard
Marquis of Hertford. He lived at the corner of the Rue Lafitte,
and his fine rooms were crowded with objets d’art—although not
smothered in _clocks_, as they afterwards became when Wallace
and Scott occupied them. Everything was most sumptuous, but I
recollect perfectly that when the tea was brought in by a very
solemn major-domo, whose long grey whiskers I can see to this
day, Lord Hertford went to a beautiful Louis XVI. secrétaire,
which he unlocked, and brought out the sugar-basin, which he
carefully put away again after tea. (Lord Hertford was a very
handsome man, but frail and delicate.) Not long afterwards my
mother and I were invited to spend an afternoon at Bagatelle,
where Richard Wallace entertained us, as Lord Hertford was
engaged—so he sent word—in Paris. The gardens were beautiful—as
they still are—but the house was not so full as the Rue Lafitte.
“My grandfather, Colonel Gurwood, who had served through the
Peninsular War in the Light Division, was given a captaincy
in the 10th Hussars in 1814, and Richard Seymour joined the
regiment when he was seventeen years old and ten years’ junior
to my grandfather, who became much attached to him. This
friendship lasted through life.
“I possess three volumes of bound letters to Colonel Gurwood
from Lord Yarmouth, by which name Lord Hertford was know from
1822 to 1842, when he succeeded his father, Francis, the third
Marquess of Steyne of ‘Vanity Fair.’
“These letters are interesting, as they contain many references
to the collection of bric-à-brac which Lord Yarmouth and
Wallace, his secretary, had already commenced to form. Many
fine things which belonged to my grandfather, and are now the
property of my sister, were purchased by Lord Yarmouth and
Wallace or by their advice. In return, my grandfather always
bought for Lord Yarmouth his riding and driving horses. He used
to send them to Paris, where Lord Yarmouth lived with his
mother, Lady Hertford, Maria Fagnani.
“Many times have I heard my grandmother and my mother tell
the story of Sir Richard Wallace’s adoption by Lord Hertford.
Wallace was the son of Lord Yarmouth by a girl, Agnes Jackson
by name, who was a kind of _fille du régiment_ of the 10th
Hussars, and young Seymour made a home for her in Paris while
the liaison lasted. There Wallace was born, and when Seymour
parted from his mistress, the child was placed with a concierge
in the Rue de Clichy, where he ran wild under a _porte cochère_
until he was about six years old.
“My grandfather, who had known Agnes Jackson and all about her
short-lived liaison with Lord Yarmouth, hunted up the boy, and
finding he was a smart child, showed him to Lady Hertford,
Maria Fagnani, and induced her to bring him up, much against
the inclination of her son.
“There is, and never was, the slightest foundation for the
absurd legend that Maria Fagnani was Sir Richard Wallace’s
mother, although the writer in the ‘Dictionary of National
Biography,’ who cannot possibly know anything of the facts,
adopts it.
“One of the reasons sometimes given for assuming that Lord
Hertford could not be Wallace’s father was that there was not
more than eighteen or nineteen years between their ages. On
the other hand, it was overlooked that Maria Fagnani was very
nearly, if not quite, fifty years of age when Wallace was born.
Anyway, I have no doubt whatever that the facts are as I have
stated them.
“They were corroborated, as far as I am concerned, by the
evidence of Madame O—— de B——, a lady who for forty years lived
on the _deuxième étage_ of the Rue Lafitte and in a beautiful
villa, called St. James, close to Bagatelle.
“She was a lady of irreproachable life, and virtue as stern as
that of Madame de Maintenon, whom she resembled in many ways.
I inherited some of the gifts which she had received from Lord
Hertford; among them a fine ‘Garter George,’ which belonged
to Prince Charles Edward, and was acquired by Francis, third
Marquis, from the collection of Cardinal York.
“It was destined for my grandfather and his children, and
Madame O—— fulfilled her obligation.
“I perfectly remember Sir Richard Wallace’s son, whose liaison
with a French girl bitterly offended Sir Richard, although, as
he was told by the young man when the quarrel was irremediable,
he had only followed his father’s example.
“Young Wallace came once or twice to London after 1870. He died
of typhoid fever when still a young man. But Wallace would
never recognize his son’s children or their mother; the former
were amply provided for by Lady Wallace. Madame O—— de B——
had no children of her own, but she showed great kindness to
her connections _de la main gauche_. I perfectly remember the
advent of Sir John Scott into the Wallace household, and the
subsequent course of a lifelong devotion to the interests of
his employers that deserved and obtained its reward.
“There is no need to enter into the story of Lady Wallace, a
very refined, shy and excellent lady, although the facts were
well known to my family.”
“My French relations were intimate with Lord Hertford, Sir
Richard Wallace and Sir John Scott, over a period extending
from 1817 to Scott’s death.”
“Yours ever,
“ESHER.”
[Illustration: SIR RICHARD WALLACE, BART., K.C.B.
_From a bust in the Wallace Collection._
[_To face p. 192._]
In a further letter to me Lord Esher very justly calls attention to the
remarkable likeness between Lord Hertford and Sir Richard Wallace. The
busts at Hertford House demonstrate this.
Richard, fourth Marquess of Hertford, who never married, died at Paris on
the 25th of August, 1870. His successor in the title, Sir Francis (or,
as his familiars called him, “Franco”) Seymour, as was natural, hurried
over to Paris, not yet beleaguered by the Prussians, to look after his
interests. He was accompanied by his eldest son and his solicitor. The
fortune at stake in lands and money was great, but, if the value of
the works of art be taken into account, enormous even in these days of
plutocratic dominion. The real estate and the personalty, taken together,
would have reached a sum “beyond the dreams of avarice;” indeed, by
comparison, the boilers and vats of Mr. Thrale would have represented no
more than a modest competence.[16]
It must have been a rude shock for the new Lord Hertford when the will
was read at Bagatelle after the funeral, and he found that, barring
the settled estates, which without the money were almost a white
elephant, there was nothing for him. The wealth which had given his two
predecessors such power that, in spite of manifest drawbacks, they were
propitiated with the Garter, had vanished like Alnaschar’s dream, and he
was left with the unredeemed anxieties and responsibilities of a country
squire. Equally, it must have been a startling shock for Sir Richard to
find that he was the heir to all that wealth.
With the exception of a handsome property which Lord Hertford bequeathed
to his cousin, Sir Hamilton Seymour, the famous ex-Ambassador, or rather
Minister, to Russia, practically everything was left to the future Sir
Richard Wallace.
Sir Richard (I call him “Sir” for convenience’ sake, though he was not
created a baronet until the following year) lost no time in turning
his newly-acquired wealth to good account. He was one of the most
generous men that ever lived. Bravely he stood by Paris and the French
in their troubles, started ambulances, founded the Hertford Hospital
for poor Englishmen, and set money flowing like water in aid of all
sufferers by the war. His charities in France were boundless, and
continued throughout his life, and indeed beyond it. But he felt it his
duty to come to England, and for thirteen years represented Lisburn in
Parliament—Lisburn, which he made the headquarters of his vast Irish
domain.
In recognition of the great services which he had rendered to the English
in Paris during the siege he was created a baronet in 1871, when he
married a French lady, Mademoiselle Castelnau, with whom he had lived
for many years, and by whom he had one son who was an officer in the
French Army. That son, now long since dead, was the great sorrow of Sir
Richard’s life. The breach between them was irreparable, and it made
the father miserable. He told a friend of mine, an Italian gentleman,
who was breakfasting with him one day and found him in a state of utter
dejection, how it irked him that people should look upon him as one
of the happiest of men, when in truth he was the most wretched. The
sympathy of a good son was the solitary thing wanting, and that he never
had.
One friend he had in Mr. Scott, afterwards Sir John, who became his
private secretary, and whose affection stood to him almost in lieu of
that of a son. Sir John’s father was a distinguished physician, a great
personal friend of Sir Richard’s. One day this gentleman’s father-in-law,
Mr. Murray, was calling upon him, shortly after his inheritance of Lord
Hertford’s possessions, and he happened to say that he was badly in need
of a private secretary, and did not know whom to choose. The post would
require some unusual qualifications—amongst others, a perfect knowledge
of French. Mr. Murray said that perhaps his grandson, a very young
barrister just called, might fulfil the conditions. Sir Richard jumped
at the offer, and the young man was sent to be looked at. The result was
that he found favour in Sir Richard’s eyes, and, after probation, was
appointed. No happier choice could have been made, no more devoted and
faithful friend could have been found; he remained with Sir Richard until
his death at Paris in 1890, and continued to keep watch over Lady Wallace
until her end came seven years later.
The nation hardly knows how much it owes to the chivalrous
self-effacement of Sir John Scott. When Lady Wallace, to whom Sir Richard
had left everything, was about to make her will, she was anxious to
bequeath her whole property to Sir John in gratitude for the devotion
with which he had managed her affairs and cared for her interests.
Sir John persuaded her that it would be a good thing if she were, at
any rate, to leave the contents of Hertford House to the nation, and,
moreover, that if he were to inherit the entire fortune, there might be
some suspicion of undue influence. If, on the other hand, she gave her
chief art treasures to England, her memory would be venerated as perhaps
the country’s greatest benefactress, while he could gratefully and
honourably accept whatever else she might be pleased to bequeath to him.
The lady followed his advice. He was a large-minded and generous man, and
though, as it turned out, he became the heir to a great fortune, it must
never be forgotten that he might have inherited property worth at that
time, according to the late Mr. Charles Davis’s computation, at least
seven millions sterling, and now, in view of the amazing rise in the
value of all works of art, perhaps as much more. It was a most courageous
and loyal piece of self-sacrifice. One day, when I said this to a man
who was inclined to scoff, his answer was: “Yes, but look at the Death
Duties that he would have had to pay.” He could have met those by the
sale of half a dozen pictures. Nothing, to my mind, can detract from the
patriotic wisdom and generosity of Sir John’s conduct.
When the greatest collection of art treasures that ever was in any
private hands became the property of the nation, the next question was
how and where to house it. Sir Michael Hicks-Beach was Chancellor of the
Exchequer at the time, and he appointed a Committee, of which he asked me
to be a member, to consider the matter. Lord Lansdowne was our chairman,
and, after careful discussion, we came to the conclusion that the best
plan to adopt would be, if possible, to purchase the freehold of Hertford
House from the Portman Estate, and house the collection in its old home,
turning the bedrooms on the first floor and the stables into galleries.
There was an idea favoured by Sir Edward Poynter that it would be wise
to separate some of the pictures—the Spanish paintings, for example—and
place them in the National Gallery; but that scheme would have been
against the provisions of the will, which insisted upon nothing being
taken from, and nothing added to, the collection as it stood, so the
proposal could not be entertained. Sir Edward would have wished the whole
collection placed in a building to be erected adjoining the National
Gallery; this was also overruled.
Upon this subject Lord Esher writes:
“The Committee to which you allude was appointed under a
Treasury Minute of the 3rd of May, 1897.