More than 60 works of art which once belonged to the prolific collector and scholar Brinsley Ford will go on public display as part of a five-year loan to the National Trust.
Ford’s son Augustine was left the works after his father’s death in 1999 and has come to an arrangement whereby they will be seen from Monday at Basildon Park, a beautiful 18th-century Georgian country mansion that was left to the trust by like-minded art collectors, Lord and Lady Iliffe.
“It has been donated in the spirit that these things should be shared, they should be seen,” said Lauren Papworth, Basildon Park’s house and collections manager. “It is a really significant addition for us.”
The works include a portrait of a rich 18th-century grand tourist Humphry Morice by Rome’s then pre-eminent portrait artist Pompeo Batoni – the Mario Testino of his day. Upstairs, visitors to Basildon Park can see the eight Batoni works collected by the Iliffes.
“The Batoni painting for us is a star,” said Papworth. “It is a fantastic work of art in its own right but it has that special connection ... it is a direct link to the Iliffes, it is just a wonderful piece.”
Nearby is another grand tourist portrait by probably the second most sought-after portrait artist, Anton Raphael Mengs.
National Trust curator Oonagh Kennedy said there had been lots of discussions about where to exhibit the Ford works. There had to be convincing reasons, she said, and Basildon offered many connections.
The property was rescued from ruin by the Iliffes in the 1950s and they set about restoring it and filling it with art, as previous owners once had.
As well as the Batonis, Basildon Park has a room filled with Graham Sutherland’s studies for the Coventry Cathedral tapestry Christ in Glory.
The Iliffes and Ford had similar passions for collecting but also showing. Ford regularly welcomed group tours of the art which hung on the walls of his Marylebone home, showing off his passion for everything from Italian old masters to Castelli majolicas to works by 20th-century artists such as Henry Moore, Henri Gaudier-Brzeska and John Piper.
He had a particular knowledge and fascination with the men who went on the grand tour, the 18th century fashion of very rich young Britons finishing their education by visiting the historic cities of Italy.
The biggest painting on loan to the trust is Thomas Patch’s A Gathering of Dilettanti around the Medici Venus where the artist is sending up the bewigged snobs earnestly appreciating the art.
Other works include a series of small gouaches of Rome by an 18th-century Italian landscape painter, Giovanni Battista Busiri, pen-and-ink drawings by Tiepolo, and portraits of Ford himself by Augustus John and Alec Cobbe, another artist closely linked to Basildon after the Iliffes commissioned him to paint the ceiling roundels in a classical style in the dining room.
Getting all the works into one room has been a challenge, said Kennedy. “Designing the hang has been one of the really fun things – how often do you get the chance?” she said
Curators have remained true to the spirit of Ford who had no hestitation in hanging a barely known artist alongside a superstar. “What’s interesting is that Ford had no rigid hierarchy: he would have decorative pieces alongside an important Tiepolo,” said Kennedy. “He didn’t care about jarring frames and you could have a pen-and-ink alongside an oil on copper.”
Ford had a long association with the National Trust and also sat for nearly 30 years on the executive committee of the National Art Collections Fund, today known as the Art Fund.
• At Home with Art, Treasures from the Brinsley Ford Collection is at Basildon Park in Berkshire.
- This article was amended on 2 November 2015. The subheading stated that Basildon Park was in Essex. Basildon is in Essex, Basildon Park mansion is in Berkshire. This has been corrected.
