The 4th Marquess of Hertford (1800–1870) was one of the greatest connoisseurs of the 19th century. Together with his likely son, Sir Richard Wallace (1818–1890), we have Hertford to thank for the dizzying array of artworks that make up the Wallace Collection. Some aspects of his taste were pioneering for a collector of his generation.
For example, he sought out and praised the merits of French 18th-century paintings, along with the likes of the Goncourt brothers, when they were generally considered unfashionable.
These ‘pleasing pictures’, as he would term them, appealed to his love of the sentimental, and it is perhaps partly to him that we owe the rehabilitation of the genre following the French Revolution. Hertford’s passion for Boulle furniture was, however, part of a broader trend in collecting during the 19th century.
This was a time when the work of André-Charles Boulle (1642-1732) and his contemporaries was frequently conflated, described using terms such as ‘Old Boule’, ‘Buhl’ and ‘Louis XIV’, alongside copies and pastiches made in the 18th and 19th centuries.
Although Hertford was a collector of the mid-19th century, the first 30 years of his life were lived during the reigns of George III and the Prince Regent, later George IV. He grew up mainly in Paris, but spent six formative years in England with his father, the 3rd Marquess, who once served as an art agent for the king.
In many respects, his taste echoed that of his father and George IV: richly upholstered interiors adorned with Sèvres porcelain, French and Italian bronzes, Dutch and Flemish paintings and, importantly, French furniture, especially by Boulle.
Both collectors were great Francophiles and capitalised on collections dispersed in the wake of the Reign of Terror. Hertford only settled permanently in Paris in 1829, after a sojourn in Constantinople, meaning that, until then, the French-inflected Regency taste must have been a prime influence on his interests.
Perhaps it was the luxury of 18th-century French decorative arts, and their association with royal absolutism, that struck a chord with Hertford’s conservative aesthetic and political sensibilities.
After his father’s death in 1842, Hertford inherited a number of works by Boulle and his contemporaries. Some of these remain in the museum, including a pedestal clock and a pair of candlestands by Boulle that probably came from Dorchester House on Park Lane; an inkstand possibly made by Alexandre-Jean Oppenordt (1639–1715) for the Parisian guild of barber-surgeons from St Dunstan’s Villa in Regent’s Park; and a writing table by Bernard I van Risenburgh (1660–1738), which Hertford acquired at the sale of his father’s effects.
All but one piece of furniture he bid on at this auction was Boulle. Hertford also took ownership of a small number of family heirlooms in the ‘Boulle’ style, such as a pair of cabinets by Adam Weisweiler (1744–1820), made in the 1780s but fitted with older marquetry panels, as well as a pair of coffers on stands, dating to around 1820, which had been acquired by Hertford’s grandmother. It seems collecting Boulle was a multigenerational affair.
Deeply suspicious of dealers for making things ‘half new and half old’, Hertford typically sought out Boulle furniture at auction through agents, rarely making a personal appearance in salerooms.
Photographs were often sent to him for consideration, but none are known to have survived. He also had a great concern for privacy and chastised those working on his behalf if he felt this had been compromised and had increased the cost of artworks. Although it has sometimes been assumed Hertford sought only celebrity provence in art, he confessed in his correspondence that he was largely indifferent to this, instead buying things for their beauty, and was wary of marketing ploys concocted by dealers.
While exercising caution, Hertford successfully negotiated the 19th-century art world, where certainty was scarce and sales handles were common. His discerning eye served him well, and it is to him that we owe one of the world’s finest art collections, including an impressive group of furniture by Boulle.
Hertford kept substantially more art in his London residences than in Paris, specifically at Hertford House. He seldom visited and used it mainly as storage for works, which were curated by his primary agent, Samuel Mawson.
Yet it was also home to the larger part of his Boulle collection, and was particularly rich in large-scale pieces. These were almost certainly all acquired in England, rather than France, which testifies to the frenzied activity of British collectors after the Revolution.
Some were from prestigious collections, for example, one wardrobe was acquired from the collection of the spendthrift 2nd Duke of Buckingham and Chandos, who incurred tremendous debts and was forced to sell the contents of his palatial residence, Stowe House.
Hertford was primarily active on the English market until 1862, when Mawson, who had a poor opinion of the French market, died; thereafter, he became more active in Paris.
Hertford’s primary residence in the city was an apartment in rue Laffitte. This was located at the centre of fashionable and artistic life during the Second French Empire (1852–70). The Boulle pieces it contained were generally smaller than those in London, such as a later version of a console table devised for the royal menagerie, bought from the 12th Earl of Pembroke, a dissolute exile in Paris, and a medal cabinet that might once have belonged to Vivant Denon, Napoleon’s arts minister and an early Egyptologist.
A number of clocks were also present, including two with figures of Love triumphing over Time, one representing four continents, which came from the town hall of Yverdon, and another with Venus and Cupid from the magnificent collection of Anatole Demidoff, Prince of San Donato. Hertford kept a smaller part of his Parisian collection at the château de Bagatelle, an 18th-century pleasure house on the outskirts of the city. Little Boulle furniture was recorded there, aside from an enormous 19th-century wardrobe.
While Hertford looked for authenticity in his Boulle furniture, he was also concerned with its condition – the fragility of its marquetry well known – and was not afraid to have it restored or altered to suit his preferences. A toilette mirror supplied to the duchesse de Berry by Alexis Deleroue, for example, was repaired by the firm Delaroche, who also added Hertford’s coat of arms. Many works by Boulle, including those in the museum, have been subject to numerous campaigns of restoration and embellishment and do not necessarily appear as they did when first delivered. They have all led long lives and suffered the vagaries of time.
This, however, should not necessarily be viewed negatively but as evidence of Boulle’s enduring popularity, a fact also underlined by Hertford’s commissioning of copies of Boulle furniture he was unable to acquire. Using the access granted him by his connections to both the courts of Queen Victoria and Napoleon III, as well as his extraordinary wealth, he had elaborate and costly pieces made in imitation of celebrated models by the cabinetmaker.