The original Russell-Cotes collectionThe original Russell-Cotes collection had a fairly broad subject range, and though the paintings were mainly by British artists, there were also a significant number of nineteenth century European paintings. After Merton’s death this group was later complemented by the Lucas Bequest of religious and iconographic Italian Renaissance paintings. There are now almost 1,000 oil paintings in the collection.
A proliferation of historical, literary and contemporary genre paintings in a burgeoning market was produced for nouveaux riches men such as Merton. His choice of subject, whilst idiosyncratic and personal, typified the taste of the contemporary middle class Victorian art collector.
Like many of his fellow collectors, he admired high art and saw history painting as the peak of that recognised hierarchy of themes of universal significance, including scriptural, mythological and literary subjects.
Merton also favoured paintings which affirmed his belief sets. He showed a fondness for landscapes, small genre scenes, and animal subjects. He admired works with an impressionist and plein air approach, evoking images which he recognised as quintessentially English.
By concentrating on contemporary British paintings Merton saw himself as a friend and champion of distinguished British artists.
He was a regular viewer at the commercial galleries on Bond Street but he was also changeable, buying and selling work with considerable regularity as his taste and whim dictated.
Although he also bought important sculpture and works on paper, oil paintings predominated. Working particularly with Thomas H. Woods a senior partner in Christie, Manson and Woods, Merton bought from auction and also from artists themselves. He sought out copies of famous works or pictures from artists whose reputations were on the wane and therefore cheaper, such as Edwin Long and William Powell Frith.
Perhaps the most individual feature of Merton’s collecting was his penchant for the depiction of women, shown as chaste, attractive girls or the nudes which, as he zestfully recorded, sometimes aroused scandalised comment when placed on exhibition. Women were not only considered the "weaker sex" but, according to Darwin among others, members of a lower, "primitive" species.
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Above: detail from Jezebel, 1896, J.L. Byam Shaw, 1872-1919, now on display in gallery II.
On the walls of East Cliff Hall icons of female sensuality such as Jezebel, The Butterfly and Andromeda vied with representations of womanly pathos and virtue such as Weary, also known as Reverie, Going To Church; A Dutch Peasant, and Luther's Hymn; 'Ein' Feste Burg ist unser Gott'. Nudes were considered an important part of any contemporary collection, ignoring their explicit nature to claim the legitimacy of art.
Visitors to the museum are as struck by the wealth of imagery devoted to the female nude as they are by the sumptuous decorations and magnificent setting overlooking the English Channel. Alison Smith has argued that artists and connoisseurs were generally trusted to approach images of the undraped figure with contemplative composure, but audiences uneducated in the intricacies of art criticism tended to be regarded with suspicion lest they conflate ideal form with naked fact.
Russell-Cotes certainly aimed to pitch himself above the aspersions cast by critics of the nude in the public domain. He liked to consider himself an informed advocate and adjudicator of what he referred to as the Divine Human Form. Not only did he collect paintings of the nude but also marble & bronze statuary, ceramics and drawings. Perhaps he did view and present the idealised nude as an agent of national purity on the grounds that it instilled sexual restraint in men and a respect for women so long as it was represented by academically trained artists. Yet to modern eyes the representation of the nude in some of his collection, more closely resembles titillating sado-erotica.
Text adapted from The Story of the Russell-Cotes Art Collection by Gwen Yarker © Gwen Yarker/Russell-Cotes Art Gallery & Museum, 2008 |
