The Golden Age Bought with Love: The Secret History of British Art Collections

Imagine a world that is very different from today.

A world where there are no public galleries

full of colourful paintings,

where the names of great men like Leonardo da Vinci

and Michelangelo are hardly known -

where art is considered purely decorative

and the artist a mere craftsman.

It's astonishing, yet this was Britain 400 years ago.

Since then, great works of art have flooded onto British shores

and our appreciation of art and artists has been transformed.

This is the story of the private collectors who brought

a wealth of treasures from overseas,

whose patronage encouraged British-born artists and whose

personal passion for art and individual taste helped create this

cultural revolution and shaped the artistic direction of our nation.

In this programme,

I'll be looking at the golden age of collecting in the 18th century.

Before this, just a handful of privileged men and women had travelled abroad,

developing a pioneering passion for art.

But now, this enthusiasm spread throughout the entire aristocracy,

who began importing the very best European paintings by the ship-load.

They've got gold and they've got silver

and, you know, people are quite happy to take that.

I'll explore how the appreciation of art offered a new

form of cultural currency.

And as their collections grew,

art-lovers like Thomas Coke created grand country seats to display them.

Houses like this were built for show.

I'll see how the rich and powerful Dukes of Richmond at Goodwood House

supported the revolutionary idea that the view from a window

could be a worthy subject for a painting.

And how Petworth House, and the third Earl of Egremont,

its bohemian owner, helped establish the painters who would become

the great masters of British art.

London, at the dawn of the 18th century.

The Act of Union between England and Scotland

had created a new nation - Great Britain -

poised to enjoy a period of peace and prosperity.

In this newly affluent age, the leading patrons of the arts

would not be the monarchy, but Britain's landed gentry -

more numerous and more wealthy than ever before.

A powerful new breed of connoisseur collector was emerging -

a culturally informed aristocrat, who would use art to define status.

It was their money, and their taste,

that would shape the artistic direction of this nation.

This was a time when young aristocrats were expected

to earn their cultural credentials with a Grand Tour of Europe -

often lasting several years.

With a tutor to keep them on the straight and narrow,

Italy was a favourite destination.

They took in all the major sights and art galleries -

including the Uffizi in Florence and the Colosseum in Rome.

It was essential to return with an enviable collection of artwork,

as proof you'd matured into a person of taste and discernment.

And there was one man who, more than any other,

embodied this new, culturally confident age.

Celebrated by his peers as England's Apollo of the Arts,

Richard Boyle, third Earl of Burlington,

returned from his Grand Tour with enough treasures to fill 800 trunks.

Inspired by the work of the Italian Renaissance architect, Palladio,

he built this magnificent Thames-side villa, not to live in,

but to house his newly acquired collection.

Burlington's neo-Palladian style,

with its restrained facades and rational planning,

became a hallmark of 18th-century Britain.

This unique marriage of art and architecture

set the benchmark for every serious British collector.

The tasteful display of your art would become a sign of social status

and intellectual sophistication.

While most of Burlington's collection has now been dispersed,

numerous British aristocrats would follow his example

on a much grander scale -

showing off the highlights of their collection in country retreats

often extended, or even specially built for the purpose.

Agricultural wealth pouring into East Anglia at this time

funded the construction of Holkham Hall in Norfolk.

This great Palladian villa was created in the 1730s,

under Burlington's supervision, for Thomas Coke,

who later became first Earl of Leicester.

The house was conceived as the perfect setting

for Coke's art collection.

And it embodies the taste of a new generation

of 18th-century connoisseurs.

Today, great works by the 17th-century masters,

such as Rubens, hang at Holkham.

Because Coke's Grand Tour lasted six years -

making it the longest in history.

He bought Van Dycks and picked out the very best paintings

and statues by the Italian artists like Guido Reni.

There were many great collections being built up at this time,

but what makes Holkham stand out for me

is the way that house and collection grew together.

It's the perfect Grand Tour house,

built in the style and spirit of the age.

But Thomas Coke wasn't always a studious and refined art lover.

His parents died when he was just ten years old,

and Coke was adopted by his grandparents,

who took his education very seriously.

When he became a little too keen on hunting and cockfighting,

they sent him off on the obligatory cultural tour overseas.

The current Viscount Coke and his family still live here at Holkham

where the archives contain a fascinating personal account

of how the boisterous young Coke was seduced by the art of Italy.

You get the impression that he really caught

the Grand Tour bug in a big way.

Yes, absolutely.

This is a letter which we have which he wrote in 1714,

so a year in, from Rome, to his uncle.

"I have become since my stay at Rome a perfect virtuoso

"and a great lover of pictures, even so far as to venture

"to encroach on the kindness of my guardians in having bought some few."

So it really sounds as though he was asking for more pocket money!

Yes! And thankfully it was given,

because he was able to buy yet more treasures.

And I suppose then at this point he realised that he needed

to create somewhere to put all the things that he bought?

Yes. I mean, houses like this were built for show.

To show off to the public and to visitors and to your guests

your collection and vis-a-vis your learning and your knowledge.

The pioneering collectors that travelled to Europe

100 years previously,

favoured the great Renaissance artists,

like Titian and Leonardo da Vinci.

But demand soon out-stripped supply,

inflating prices beyond what most buyers were prepared to pay.

To prevent Italy being completely stripped of its treasures,

Italian authorities imposed laws

making old masters almost impossible to export.

So the art lovers of Thomas Coke's generation

began to develop broader tastes.

By the time Coke set off on his Grand Tour, the art market was

leading prospective picture-buyers in a new direction,

and certain previously over-looked artists

were becoming the new collectables.

Rome, with its ancient ruins,

was one of the highlights of the Grand Tour.

And here, British travellers were enchanted by the work of

the 17th-century classical painter Claude,

who had long been a favourite among Roman cardinals.

And no-one more so than Thomas Coke.

The Landscape Room here at Holkham is a real gem of British collecting.

It contains one of the finest groups of Claude's work in private hands -

still hung exactly as it was in Thomas Coke's day.

At first glance, we might think these are simply pastoral scenes.

But in Coke's day, collectors wanted more than that.

The narrative aspect of a painting was still very important

and each of these actually depicts a scene from classical mythology.

Claude was a very methodical painter,

using certain building blocks, such as the lone tree, the classical ruin

and the distant mountains again and again in his paintings.

His skill was in arranging these into a different composition

each time, creating a series of imaginary landscapes.

Claude had really stumbled across the perfect formula

to appeal to the 18th-century English aristocrat.

Because his paintings combine the viewer's desire

for intellectual content - by their all-important references

to classical narratives - with the beautiful landscape background.

Claude's carefully composed images of nature

inspired a new fashion for landscape gardening amongst the aristocracy

who tried to emulate these scenes on their country estates.

As an early collector of Claude's work, Thomas Coke was paving the way

for the new genre of landscape painting,

which would become such an important part of the story of art in this country.

Thomas Coke continued to collect art for the house

right up until his death in 1759.

At a time when Britain had no National Art Gallery,

the cultural influence of private collections like this was significant.

A personal invitation to visit somewhere like Holkham was

the only opportunity most people would ever get to see

really first-class art in this country.

The house, and the influential collection that remains here,

are Thomas Coke's lasting legacy.

The remarkable thing about the 18th century

was that passionate art-lovers like Thomas Coke were not a one-off.

This has become known as the golden age of British collecting

with very good reason.

It was a time when our pursuit of art reached fever pitch,

and many wealthy aristocrats were dedicating themselves,

and their considerable fortunes, to the cause.

In a boom year like 1725, the British imported

over 750 paintings and 6,000 prints from Italy alone.

Such was the enthusiasm for art, there was

even a new gentleman's club founded by and for British collectors.

The Society of Dilettanti, of which Thomas Coke was an early member,

allowed Grand Tourists to develop the artistic knowledge

they'd gained abroad upon their return home.

It was also a riotous all-male club.

Horace Walpole observed that, "The nominal qualification is

"having been in Italy, and the real one, being drunk in Rome."

Historian Jeremy Black

has spent many years studying this particularly vibrant period.

So here we are at the Uffizi and you really get the idea

it's the golden age of collecting, don't you?

They all look so passionate about what they're doing.

They're certainly passionate!

In fact, you'll notice them all gazing there at the nude!

You see a number of features.

First of all, you have a lot of people here.

You've got a literal account of what was on the walls.

This is one of the reasons people purchased paintings like this.

Because it, as it were, was a record of the art.

There's several different forms of art co-existing

when the British buy art in Italy.

So it's the very richness,

the multiplicity of cultural worlds and the opportunities,

therefore, for collectors, as collectors, to both educate

themselves in different styles, and to basically acquire what they like.

They are really the big international collectors

-by this point, aren't they?

-Yes. The British are the great international collectors.

Many of the aristocratic Grand Tourists not only use

agricultural wealth, but also used

the wealth from the coal that is dug up from their estates.

They've got gold and they've got silver

and, you know, people are quite happy to take that.

One of the ways you show your taste,

and of course spend the family money,

is by going round Europe, purchasing things, seeing things,

acquiring what they called virtu.

And you really want to bring back a few pictures to show that

you've been there, don't you?

You bring back pictures to show you've been there.

You bring them back because, also, you want things

to hang on your walls, which is very important.

All of these people are building nice houses in Britain,

these grand 18th-century houses,

with these high ceilings, many more spaces for paintings.

So they need paintings to go in there.

And there are some cases of people actually specifying

the size of painting they wanted.

But also, even if you've got paintings already,

some of the old paintings might be gloomy, they might be

damaged by water or the years,

so to have some bright painting, splashed in colour,

-showing where you had been, that was great.

-Yes.

By the mid-18th century, Venice had usurped Rome

as the favourite destination of British Grand Tourists.

A cosmopolitan centre of trade where anything was possible,

then as now, the city thoroughly seduced British visitors.

And all were all keen to take home a visual record of their trip.

This spawned a whole new art market as Venetian painters supplied

city views for the endless streams of foreign visitors.

And one artist's output

particularly caught the eye of British collectors -

Giovanni Antonio Canal, who we now know as Canaletto.

Canaletto had begun his career painting theatrical scenery.

It was a training ground that served him well.

He often took a view from two perspectives

and then combined them into a single, more expansive image -

rather like using a wide-angle lens.

Long before the Impressionists, Canaletto was painting out of doors,

recording scenes from everyday life.

From the carefully observed view before him,

Canaletto created an enhanced, augmented Venice of his own.

And it was Canaletto's version of Venice

that the British Grand Tourists wanted to hang on their walls -

to remind them of their travels in Italy

during the long, cold winters back home.

Canaletto soon became Venice's most popular contemporary painter.

But behind many a great artist, there's a canny agent.

Canaletto would not have enjoyed such success without

the help of British entrepreneur, Joseph Smith.

Smith started out in Venice as a fish merchant, but soon realised

there was much more money to be made in pictures than in fish.

He had the three main attributes of any successful dealer -

a good eye, an instinct for what the market wanted

and a natural ability to negotiate.

It was not for nothing that he became known

as The Merchant of Venice.

In many ways, it was Joseph Smith that made Canaletto's career.

As Canaletto's main agent,

Smith kept a close eye on the artist's output,

and used his British connections to their mutual benefit.

Joseph Smith knew everyone who was anyone in Venice,

and he often held soirees to entertain visiting British aristocrats.

During the course of the evening, he would ply them with wine and then

produce a catalogue containing examples of Canaletto's work.

It proved to be a very successful formula.

Together, Smith and Canaletto enjoyed a roaring trade.

There are now more of Canaletto's Venetian views in Britain

than there are in Venice itself.

And it was Joseph Smith that introduced Canaletto

to the Englishman who would become a pivotal figure in his career -

Charles Lennox, the second Duke of Richmond.

Richmond was born on the family estate at Goodwood,

in West Sussex, in 1701.

His father, the illegitimate son of Charles II,

had used his family connections to amass

one of the art collections of the 17th century.

So, like many young aristocrats of his generation,

the second Duke had grown up surrounded by

a significant collection of paintings -

including beautiful works by Van Dyck.

Richmond inherited the family passion for art.

But when the 18-year-old set off on his Grand Tour,

it was more than a cultural trip -

there was an added incentive to escape.

He'd been forcibly married off to Sarah Cadogan,

the 13-year-old daughter of a British ambassador,

in order to settle his father's gambling debt.

He spent the next three years enjoying all the delights

of the Continent, including those of an Italian mistress!

On his return, he decided to spend his last night of freedom

at the theatre, where he was bowled over

by the beauty of one of the young ladies in the audience.

On enquiring who she might be, he was delighted to discover

that she was, in fact, his own wife.

The shy teenager he'd spurned three years previously

had blossomed into a vivacious young woman.

And their forced marriage matured into

one of the great love affairs of the century.

Shortly after he returned home,

Richmond commissioned some Venetian views by Canaletto

as a souvenir of his adventures in Italy.

The paintings were a great success with the Duke,

who proudly displayed them at Richmond House, his home in London.

In Richmond, Canaletto had gained a very useful English admirer,

because his lucrative Venetian market would not last for ever.

In 1740, the War of Austrian Succession plunged

the Continent into a period of political turmoil,

which discouraged all but the most determined British tourists.

Canaletto's art market in Venice crashed,

and he needed to look elsewhere.

Hoping the British aristocrats who had commissioned him

so abundantly in Italy would do the same back home,

Canaletto travelled to England.

Entering London in 1746, he found himself in the largest

and fastest growing city in Western Europe,

a vibrant artistic centre,

where careers could be re-launched and fortunes repaired.

Armed with a letter of recommendation from Joseph Smith,

the artist was pinning his hopes on one particular patron.

Canaletto went straight to the Duke of Richmond's house in London.

And it was Richmond who would give the artist

his first commission on British soil, AND an all-important

introduction to the English social scene.

But the Duke was not alone in supporting Canaletto.

In the Goodwood archives, an intriguing letter from Richmond's

former tutor, Thomas Hill, reveals several people had been

working behind the scenes to secure Canaletto's first London commission.

The idea was hatched over a drunken dinner attended by Hill

and a flamboyant character called Owen McSwiney -

who would become Canaletto's main agent in London.

We have this wonderful letter, in the archive, which is dated

Tuesday May the 20th, 1746.

So that's interesting cos that was before Canaletto came to England

-for the first time.

-Yeah, so this is sort of preparing the way.

And in it he mentions sort of our old friend McSwiney.

McSwiney, this wonderful Irish agent.

Yes, the rogue who in many ways performed these introductions,

but you never quite know what was going on in the background.

-Certainly he was friendly to the Duke.

-Yes.

And he says, Hill says to the Duke,

"I told him, the best service I thought you could do him,

"would be to let him draw a view of the river from your dining room,

"which in my opinion would gain him as much reputation

"as any of his Venetian prospects."

This commission then, from the Duke of Richmond, was pretty

instrumental in starting Canaletto's career in England, wasn't it?

Yes, and I think that's why Canaletto took

so much trouble over the two paintings from Richmond House,

where he really pulled out all the stops to produce superb paintings.

Because once they'd been given the seal of approval by

-the Duke of Richmond, he'd really arrived.

-Yes.

And they would be seen by all the most important people in the country.

He was really trying to sell himself by doing this commission.

The paintings captured the view from the Duke's townhouse in London.

But they were specifically conceived

for the walls of his estate at Goodwood

where they still hang today.

Canaletto's paintings are subtly balanced compositions,

using unusual angles and fragments of buildings

to create the impression that we're just looking out of a window,

catching a glimpse of life going on outside.

Like in his Venetian scenes, he's also enhanced the view here -

enlarging the sweep of the Thames to add a feeling of grandeur

and to bring St Paul's into view centre-stage.

Another charming thing about Canaletto's paintings is

his use of figures in the foreground.

They're so minutely observed and meticulously painted.

Look at those men with their frock coats

and ladies with their full skirts, promenading along the terrace.

Richmond's commission was a pivotal moment, not just for Canaletto,

but for the development of art in Britain.

Up to this point,

landscape paintings had always included

historical or mythological references,

to give them intellectual appeal.

But Canaletto took the revolutionary step of leaving this out altogether.

These are pure cityscapes,

celebrating the beauty of buildings and the joys of city life.

Canaletto showed us that it was quite acceptable

to paint places as a subject in their own right.

The idea that art could simply capture the contemporary view

from a window would gather momentum as the 18th century progressed.

At this point, Britain's aristocracy were riding high.

They controlled the government, owned most of the land

and enjoyed enormous personal wealth.

And as the population of the capital swelled,

those lucky enough to own country estates increasingly spurned

the booming city for the quieter pleasures of rural life.

The shift in focus from city to country went hand-in-hand

with the increasing popularity of country pursuits.

And this would present a great opportunity for a new genre in art

that reflected the favourite pastimes of wealthy British patrons.

Suddenly, the land-owner wanted not only a portrait of himself,

but of his horses and hounds too.

The estate at Goodwood was already famed for its hunting parties.

When Charles Lennox succeeded his father,

becoming the third Duke of Richmond,

he proved an equally passionate animal-lover.

An early portrait shows him caressing his favourite dogs.

With peace restored on the Continent,

the Duke was able to follow in his father's footsteps,

embarking on an extensive Grand Tour.

As well as the usual stopping points in France and Italy,

the Duke spent several months in Holland,

studying anatomy at Leiden University.

It was a very formative time.

The scientific grounding that he gained here

would profoundly influence his artistic tastes in later life.

On his return home, the Duke threw himself into making his mark

on Goodwood House, and the art collection it contained.

With his love of animals and country pursuits,

it's not surprising that the third Duke was quick to embrace

the newly popularised sporting portrait.

And, in being the first to spot the potential of an unknown

equestrian painter who would go on to define the genre,

the Duke would have a major influence

on the development of British art.

In the 1750s,

the Duke began a palatial new stable block at Goodwood.

Observers commented that his horses lived in greater luxury than he did.

It was here, in the stable-boys' quarters,

that a little-known English artist stayed for nine months

while he worked on his first major commission.

George Stubbs was the Liverpool-born son of a leather worker.

Like the third Duke, he had also studied anatomy from an early age.

His early career had been unremarkable -

a few run-of-the-mill portraits of local dignitaries -

but not much else!

But at the age of 32,

Stubbs immersed himself in a project that would transform his art.

Striving to emulate the anatomical accuracy of Leonardo da Vinci,

who he so admired, Stubbs spent 18 months

holed up in a remote farmhouse, dissecting horses

to study the intricacies of their bones and muscles.

Even before Stubbs published his ground-breaking

Anatomy Of The Horse,

his drawings were already being circulated, and admired.

It was while he was working on this that he first

came into contact with the third Duke of Richmond.

In fact, it was probably their shared passion for horses

and anatomy that brought them together.

The Duke was taking a huge risk in commissioning

a totally unknown painter, but he recognised

that Stubbs' drawings had life-like accuracy

that no other artist had achieved.

And in 1759, Richmond gave Stubbs his first major commission -

to produce a series of equestrian portraits for Goodwood House.

The paintings that Stubbs created

still form part of the family collection today.

They feature views of racehorses in the park,

as well as hunting and shooting parties in the grounds.

They're a fascinating historical record of daily life

on a landed estate.

And they're full of intriguing details.

The main figure in this picture is Henry Fox,

with whom the Duke's sister scandalously eloped.

Stubbs also features servants, indicating the Duke's status

as a gentleman in charge of a large household.

Stubbs raised the status of sporting painting to become

a form of country group portrait.

This celebration of rural life heralded a new direction in art.

Before long, British collectors would fall in love with landscape

as a subject in its own right.

STAG ROARS

Following the success of his work for the Duke of Richmond,

commissions from other landed gentry came flooding in.

With Richmond's support and backing,

Stubbs was able to realise his full potential.

He cast aside his days as a struggling portraitist,

and emerged as the artist that defined a genre in painting

and captured a particular moment in British rural life.

And Stubbs' enduring popularity

would not be the third Duke's only contribution.

By the mid-18th century, many British collectors were

beginning to recognise and support our home-grown talent.

But Richmond realised that our artists were still

struggling against their foreign competitors.

France and Italy had art academies that recognised rising talent

with medals and prizes.

They also had sculpture galleries and life-drawing classes -

allowing students to study the human form.

But Britain still had no national art school,

and no public sculpture galleries.

While Richmond could visit the collections of other

art-loving aristocrats, these were in private homes

and we're not easily accessible to budding artists.

With his scientific background, Richmond understood

the artistic importance of anatomical study better than most.

So he came up with a plan to give young British painters

the same facilities enjoyed by their continental counterparts.

The Duke of Richmond created a new purpose-built sculpture gallery

at his London home, to give British painters a rare opportunity

to study and draw the human form.

The venture began with the best intentions.

But it was not long before the Duke was called away to the Continent

on military matters.

On his return home, he found a sarcastic note pinned to the door,

complaining about the lack of prizes.

Rather disgruntled, the Duke closed his gallery immediately.

Richmond's scheme may have been imperfectly realised,

but the idea behind it was symptomatic of a growing awareness

that artists needed a formal school.

Such schemes paved the way

for the foundation of London's Royal Academy a decade later.

The academy offered public lectures on art,

as well as drawing classes and an annual exhibition

where potential patrons could view the work

of the most promising contemporary artists.

The first meeting was held on December 14th 1768,

chaired by the academy's first president, Joshua Reynolds.

The son of a clergyman,

Reynolds studied art in London before travelling to Rome,

where he absorbed the work of the great masters.

Reynolds returned to London

inspired to raise British portrait painting to a whole new level.

His unrivalled draftsmanship,

combined with his ability to flatter,

soon made him a great favourite amongst the English aristocracy.

Everyone who was anyone was painted by Reynolds,

including the third Duke of Richmond.

Reynolds was the perfect choice for the first

president of the Royal Academy.

Not only was he a great artist, but he was also very socially confident,

and a smooth operator - which stood him in very good stead at a time

when the social status of the artist was still highly questionable.

The Royal Academy, with Reynolds at its head,

raised the whole profession of painting in Britain.

It also changed the way collectors saw art and artists.

The Royal Academy quickly established itself

at the heart of the London arts scene,

and became an essential destination for every serious art collector.

What's quite fascinating about the Royal Academy is obviously

it was an institution where artists could learn, could study.

But it gave them a lot more than that, didn't it?

It did. I mean, at its heart it was a school.

But it also brought in the marketplace.

And so the unusual aspect of the academy is that you had

everything under one roof.

You had the schools, you had the annual exhibition

and that became the great shop window for all of the artists

associated with the academy and any other professional painter

that wanted to send their work - and sculptor -

to the exhibition, held every year in May.

They all took part,

very enthusiastic to hang their paintings.

I mean, it's a wonderful sight, isn't it!

It's incredible! It's spectacular, really!

This room was designed to be a gallery by William Chambers,

so it's the first purpose-built gallery, as such, in London.

-Certainly of this scale.

-And look at them all.

I mean, you can why understand some of the artists were a bit peeved

if theirs were hung right at the top of the wall.

-It's called skying.

-Is it?

-Yeah.

You get lots of comments from people in letters saying,

they skied my picture.

Which meant that they'd hung it up certainly near the ceiling there.

But equally, it could be hung near the skirting board,

and that was even more risky, because you would often find

your canvas was damaged by umbrellas and hobnail boots and suchlike.

-I see.

-But it was an incredibly crowded space.

And in this image, you have the Prince of Wales here,

being escorted by Joshua Reynolds. You can see his ear-trumpet.

Being a shop window, that's a lovely idea.

And how did they go about introducing the artists

to the patrons?

The most important night of the year was, without doubt,

the annual dinner, the banquet that the academy held

at the beginning of each exhibition.

-They swiftly realised its potential as a networking event.

-Yes.

And the artists mingled amongst their guests

and so you could position yourself next to the person that you

were desperately hoping would become your patron, and so really

this was a golden opportunity to rub shoulders and get some business.

That's a lovely moment for British art, actually, because it's

British artists taking themselves seriously for the first time.

It is.

And so that's obviously the social side of what went on at the academy.

But this is very much the more studious side, isn't it?

Is that the Royal Academy schools?

This is a representation of the Life Academy,

as it was called, which was the service that the academy

brought that really no-one else was able to offer.

You had access to the living human nude figure to draw from,

both male and female,

which was highly unusual in Europe at that time.

Most countries - France, for instance -

wouldn't have provided female nude models to draw from for the schools.

-Very forward-looking!

-Very forward-looking.

But again, I think this shows the ambition

of what was going on with the academy.

They thought, right, we can do what no-one else is doing.

The British School is going to be the best.

They're going to have the best materials to study from.

We're going to have the best school in Europe.

And so this is almost like an official group portrait

of the very early academy, painted by Zoffany for the King.

British artists now enjoyed the recognition

and social status they had lacked for so long.

And a central space to show and market their work.

The public could see brand-new output by rising British artists.

By the late 18th century, the enjoyment of art had become

a respectable form of popular entertainment.

And not just in London.

Visiting the private collections in our great country houses was

now a favourite national pastime, and newly published guidebooks

outlined the many remarkable art works that could be seen.

Where once Britain's collections had been accessible to just

a select few, increasingly, owners were willing to open their doors

and share their homes with an inquisitive and appreciative public.

And there was one man who, perhaps more than any other,

moved the story of art patronage into the modern age.

Rather than employ artists to do his bidding,

he invited them into his home

to enjoy his collection and explore their own creative talents.

He gave them the freedom to paint whatever they wanted.

This forward-thinking patron was George Wyndham,

third Earl of Egremont -

the bohemian owner of Petworth House in West Sussex.

Petworth, and the art collection it contained,

was a place of inspiration for a young British painter who would

become the star of his generation - Joseph Mallord William Turner.

Petworth Park, glowing with the colours of sunset,

would be immortalised in some of his finest work.

Egremont was just a 12-year-old boy when his father died, in 1763.

But his 70-year term at Petworth is often described as

a golden age in the history of the house and its collection.

Egremont grew up to be a forward thinking and benevolent landlord,

allowing local villagers to use his parkland as they pleased.

One French visitor observed with surprise,

"He suffers the peasants of his village to play bowls and cricket

"on the lawn before the house,

"to scribble on the walls, and even on the glass of his windows."

Egremont was also a liberal and generous host.

Petworth became home-from-home for many contemporary British artists,

who were free to explore the house and grounds,

as well as Egremont's extensive art collection.

One aspiring English painter,

wrote home excitedly of dining in a room full of Van Dycks.

By the end of the 18th century, great houses like Petworth

were bearing the fruits of 150 years of art collecting in Britain.

Thanks to our many passionate collectors,

it was no longer necessary to travel abroad to experience

first-class works of art. They could now be enjoyed at home.

When it came to art,

Egremont was known as a man who thought for himself.

During his lifetime, he expanded the family collection

to over 600 paintings - particularly favouring contemporary British talent.

In his North Gallery here at Petworth, Egremont radically

chose to allow paintings and sculpture to inter-mingle.

And hung paintings by old masters of the past

alongside new works by British artists - as equals.

Egremont was, of course,

a regular guest at the Royal Academy's Summer Exhibition.

And it was here that he first spotted a strikingly original piece

by the young English artist, Turner.

Egremont snapped up the painting for his collection, and it was

the start of a lifelong friendship between artist and patron.

For the current Lady Egremont,

it remains a particularly powerful painting.

So this is your favourite painting in the whole collection.

Yes, it is. It was the first picture that Lord Egremont bought.

He bought it in 1802, from the Royal Academy,

before he really knew Turner.

And what's interesting about the picture is that there's

a huge amount of sky, a huge amount of sea.

And the actual incident of what's going on

is in quite a narrow band in the middle.

Yes, you're right, that's fascinating.

It's a very patriotic picture, in the sense that there's

a great British warship, right here, in the background,

which would have been flying - right in the middle of the picture -

the red ensign, which is the naval flag

because this is 1802, and it's three years before

the battle of Trafalgar, and we were petrified of the French.

We thought they might invade.

And so this ship would have been patrolling the Channel,

and Turner's put it there as a sort of calm, silent ship at anchorage.

Giving it pride of place.

And it's a sort of contrast to the drama that's

-happening on the right-hand side.

-Yes, that's beautiful, that balance.

So do you find you come and look at this picture quite often?

I do. This is the one I'm drawn to the most. Yes, I do.

I'm not surprised. I can see that.

You must almost feel that you know Turner, living here.

I do believe the atmosphere of Turner's time is still here a bit.

And that was its moment, really?

It was the most important moment in the history of this house,

I think, the most interesting moment.

It was when the house really came to life.

The unique atmosphere at Petworth during Egremont's day is

captured in the hundreds of watercolour sketches

that Tuner painted during his time here.

INDISTINCT CHATTING

The house came to feel like a luxurious art academy,

where Turner and many other artists, including his contemporary,

John Constable, were welcomed as house guests.

The opportunity to spend time with these great works -

to study and enjoy them - inspired the artists that came here

to take their own art to a new level.

Egremont gave the artists their own space,

to socialise, to sketch and to paint.

This was the old library.

Now in a disused wing of the house, closed to the public,

it has hardly changed since Turner's day.

And you can sense at once that it's a very special place.

This space here is just so magical!

You get such a sense of being, you know, somehow behind the scenes,

away from the formal collection.

Very much so. This room, the old library, was effectively

converted into an artists' studio during that period.

And artists of the generation of Turner were at liberty

to use the room as a studio.

And, of course, it has this fabulous east-facing window.

Which is presumably this one shown here, is it?

Yes, in some of the watercolours that Turner made

at Petworth in 1827, several of those show the old library,

and one or two of them actually show artists working here.

And yes, you can clearly see the shape of the window.

These are great, aren't they, because they give you such

an idea of life going on here with the artists.

And look at this one, people just hanging out!

They really do, because they weren't intended for anyone else to see.

They were Turner's own private records,

so he really does show the place in the raw.

And of course, we've got these people in wonderful Regency costumes,

with their shoes off and lounging about on the furniture

in a way that we would today.

Of course, one of the things that we tend to forget is that there weren't

that many places where artists could go and see

-wonderful painting collections like this, were there?

-Absolutely not.

And in order for artists of this generation to see great works of art,

they very often had to go abroad or make use of collections like this.

And of course, Petworth's was, and still is, one of the finest.

And we certainly know that many of the artists who came here,

Turner included, made great use of the collection here.

The third Earl allowed the artists to have paintings

removed from the major rooms

and brought to their bedrooms or to here, the old library.

-That's incredible! That's really lovely.

-Completely.

When an inventory of the collection was done

after the third Earl's death in 1837,

there were over 50 paintings in the old library, most of which had been

brought here by artists, presumably for the purposes of study.

-Of course!

-He was just very generous like that.

Very generous! No sense of treating everything with kid gloves.

-It was a living collection.

-Very much so. Very much so.

The relaxed, bohemian atmosphere at Petworth suited Turner well.

Freed for a time from financial constraints,

he could experiment - something that few of his predecessors had the opportunity to do.

Our modern concept of an artist

is of someone driven by their own creativity -

giving expression to the ideas inside their head.

But you have to remember that this is a relatively recent thing.

And Turner was the first British painter

to be given the freedom to do this.

In that sense, he's our first truly modern artist.

It was Turner's sheer brilliance that finally succeeded

in doing what previous British artists had struggled to do -

to raise the status of landscape painting from second rate,

to an object of desire in its own right.

Turner painted four works for the dining room at Petworth House.

It is perhaps the finest group of estate views he ever created,

and it shows his skill as a mature artist.

The fact that Egremont hung Turner's new scheme alongside revered

artists of the past, like Holbein,

shows just how highly he regarded the British painter.

When I see these paintings in here,

I get the really strong sensation that they must have been

painted by someone who'd lived and breathed Petworth.

Because look at them, these aren't just views of a park,

they're paintings of an atmosphere -

that magic moment when you look out of a window for the last time,

before the shutters are closed for the day.

And if you think about what Turner's done with his canvas,

he's devoted three quarters of it to light,

and the effects of light that he witnessed on the landscape.

This was a landmark in the story of commissioning,

because here was a patron, Lord Egremont, who said to a painter,

Turner, come and stay in my house for as long as you like

whenever you like and paint your impressions of my parkland,

and I will hang them on my walls.

And that's quite a brave thing to do.

As a patron, Egremont is most famous for his friendship with Turner,

by whom there are 20 paintings at the house.

But the breadth of the collection here is testimony to the boldness of

his taste, and his support for the fledgling school of British artists.

Egremont died at the distinguished age of 85 - after catching

a chill attending the young Queen Victoria at Brighton.

His obituary stated,

"Many of the finest pictures produced in our day in England,

"and certainly the very finest works of sculpture,

"were the results of his unlimited commissions".

During the eventful 18th century, a century of British confidence,

our collectors had transformed the visual culture in this country.

They had brought the best of European art to these shores.

As well as some of the greatest European artists.

They boldly supported a rising school of British talent

and encouraged the stars of the next generation to produce

some of their finest work.

In this golden age of art collecting,

we had gone from being the poor relation of Europe,

to boasting some of the richest collections in the world.

But these collections were still in the hands

of a few wealthy individuals.

In an era of emerging democracy, there was a growing recognition

that art should move out of private rooms and into public galleries.

Next week, I'll be meeting a new generation of art collectors,

whose purchasing power came from finance and industry.

Their highly individual tastes would introduce

a profusion of different styles to Britain.

Many of the paintings collected and commissioned by great

British collectors are now in public ownership.

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