Arts and Design

'Untapped treasure': Wallace Collection to start lending artworks


Treasures from one of the world’s finest collections of art, armoury, furniture and porcelain are to be made available for loans to galleries nationally and internationally for the first time in 119 years.

The Wallace Collection in London includes superstar paintings such as Frans Hals’ The Laughing Cavalier, Diego Velázquez’s The Lady with a Fan and Nicolas Poussin’s A Dance to the Music of Time.

But none have ever been permitted to leave. The collection, bequeathed to the nation in 1897, has always been considered a closed collection because of the terms of a will left by Lady Wallace.

It was announced on Tuesday that lawyers and art experts had re-examined the terms of the will and decided they did not prevent loans, a conclusion endorsed by the UK government and the Charity Commission.

Detail from A Dance to the Music of Time by Nicolas Poussin



Detail from A Dance to the Music of Time by Nicolas Poussin. Photograph: The Wallace Collection

The decision will herald a revolution for the Wallace Collection, its director, Xavier Bray, said. “For me it is a bit like the Hobbit and you see that dragon just sitting on the treasure, not letting anybody get close to it. This is a major new chapter for the Wallace, it’s likely to be transformative in terms of how we work and how our curators and conservation staff think about the collection.”

The banker António Horta-Osório, who chairs the trustees, said it represented a hugely significant moment in the history of the collection. “It will enable us to put the collection in the 21st century.”

Detail from The Lady with a Fan by Diego Velázquez



Detail from The Lady with a Fan by Diego Velázquez. Photograph: Cassandra Parsons/The Wallace Collection

The Wallace Collection has been housed in Hertford House in central London since 1870 and opened to the public as a museum in 1900.

Bray was appointed three years ago and made challenging the loans policy a priority. “We are in central London and have this great collection but it has been rather isolating,” he said. “Working at the Wallace is quite a monastic existence because people know they will never get anything out of you.”

The interpretation of the bequest has meant its Hals has never been seen alongside another Hals; the same for its Velázquez. When the National Gallery said it would next year put on display five of six works from Titian’s “poesie” paintings, it could not include in its plans the sixth one at the Wallace.

The gallery also has arguably the most important collection of 18th-century French art outside France, with masterpieces by Jean-Honoré Fragonard, Jean-Antoine Watteau, François Boucher and Eugène Delacroix. Its collection of princely arms and armour is considered world-class. None of it has ever been lent.

“The collection has been very static,” said Bray. “Art historically, from my point of view, it is a revolution. It means that we can start really understanding our collection better by juxtaposing it with other objects from other collections.”

The Wallace stressed that loans, beginning in 2020, would be approved on an exceptional basis. “We will start slowly and then we will see how things go,” said Horta-Osório, the chief executive of Lloyds Banking Group.

The interpretation has been based on a line that the collection “shall remain together … unmixed with other objects”. Bray said this did not mean loans were expressly forbidden, pointing out that Sir Richard Wallace was a proud and enthusiastic lender of objects.

“This is a beautiful, untapped treasure which of course we will look after for future generations … things that can’t travel will not travel. But if things are done well and according to the rules, it is like bringing fresh air to the collection and just making it live again.”

This article was amended on 24 September 2019 because an earlier version incorrectly referred to the National Gallery displaying Titian’s “poesie” paintings this year. That exhibition will take place in 2020.



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