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Photo of Catalogue of the Late Lord Northwick

PHILLIPS (Auctioneer).

Catalogue of the Late Lord Northwick's Extensive and Magnificent Collection

London, Phillips,

Book sold

Royal 8vo. (260 x 184 mm.) Publisher’s original green decoratively blind-stamped and gilt-lettered cloth; pp. iv, 200, tinted lithographed frontispiece showing the entrance front of Thirlestane House, Cheltenham; the majority of lots accompanied by pencil notes of prices realised and in some cases the purchaser; the upper joint tender, some wear to the head of the spine, overall the boards bright and clean, light spotting to the frontis, otherwise a very good copy.

Provenance: 1. Samuel Clutterbuck, with his neat ink signature to the head of the title-page. Possibly his pencil annotations in the main body of the catalogue. 2. St. Paul’s College Library, Cheltenham, with its ink stamp to the foot of the title-page.

As a young man, John Rushout, 2nd Baron Northwick (1770-1859), had travelled widely in Europe, spending almost eight years in Rome. On his return from Italy in 1800 he settled at Northwick Park and commenced amassing a large and significant collection of paintings, statuary and vases, at the same time developing a then unfashionable appreciation of the works of early Italian masters, such as Botticelli and Fra Angelico. As the collection grew Northwick added a gallery to the house but this rapidly proved insufficient for the constant stream of acquisitions: so much so that he found it necessary to purchase Thirlestane House in Cheltenham for the sole purpose of exhibiting major elements of the collection to the public. He died intestate and as a result, the contents of Thirlestane were offered for sale in a series of auctions lasting twenty-two days, that included, as noted in the preface, over fifteen hundred paintings.

Stock number: 1050