Masterpieces from Petworth House showcased in Sussex

SUSSEX. More than half a century ago, specialists at the National Gallery in London explored the attics of a house in West Sussex, trying, among dirty family portraits, twilight landscapes and religious works, to choose those paintings that the government would accept instead of cash to pay off a huge inheritance tax.

Some of the selected works were in the National Gallery, others became part of state property, and today they can all be seen at the exhibition in Petworth House. Among the works presented there are real masterpieces, such as, for example, “The Holy Family” (Andrea del Sarto). Many treasures are still owned by Petworth House and will also be displayed at the exhibition. For example, the earliest known lunar surface drawings made with a telescope. The first of them was performed on July 26, 1609, on the night when the mathematician and astronomer Thomas Harriot first looked at the Earth’s satellite with his new telescope, more than four months before the Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei made his more famous today, observations.

Petworth house

Family tax arrears arose in the mid-1950s, when the death of three heirs left the Egremont family with a debt of almost one million pounds. There was a real danger that the famous Pitworth collection, including dozens of works by artists such as Van Dyck and William Turner, would be sold at auction. However, according to Andre Loukes, the deal with the National Gallery was not very successful for the family - the experts rejected many valuable exhibits, and what was selected was enough to cover only half of the debt. Petworth House and the park were transferred to the National Fund in the middle of the twentieth century. It was opened to the public in 1953, and family members and more than a hundred pieces of art moved to the wing of the house.

The undoubted star of the exhibition was the picture of Andrea del Sartro. “Any national gallery in the world would proudly exhibit this picture at home,” said Lucis. When the painting was discovered in the 1950s, another was painted on top of the original painting and experts considered it to be studio work of the 16th century at best. It was only in the 1980s that the painting was restored and the original masterpiece was discovered.

Some of the exhibits were acquired in the 17th century, by the tenth Earl of Northumberland, and already at that time this collection of objects of art could compete with the royal. The third Earl of Egremont, who was Turner’s great patron, also contributed to the collection. The Earl gave Turner and other artists a place to work, but when he died in 1837, allegedly leaving 41 illegitimate children and not a single legitimate heir, the Earl’s nephew quickly expelled all the artists and destroyed most of their work.

Fragile ink drawings of the lunar surface, made with ink on faded paper, are currently stored in the office in Chichester, where the extensive archives of the Egremont surpass all other county documents in volume. Thomas Harriot’s patron was Henry Percy, known for his interest in science and alchemy. Percy spent 17 years in custody at the Tower, probably for involvement in a powder conspiracy. Harriot did not publish his drawings, leaving them for Percy. When he was finally released, he spent the rest of his life in Pitworth. Many experts knew and respected Harriot’s groundbreaking work, and in the 1960s a group of Russian scientists came to Pitworth to study craters and mountains drawn more than 400 years ago. At that time, the Soviet Union was actively working on a flight to the moon.

Anna Sidorova © Gallerix.ru