If you are a fan of Downton Abbey, you will love the exhibit opening today at SAM (Seattle Art Museum). The paintings are similar to those on the walls of Highclere Castle, which serves as the set for the popular British drama.
Rembrandt, Van Dyck, Gainsborough: The Treasures of Kenwood House, London features about 50 masterpieces from the collection of Edward Cecil Guinness (1847–1927), the first Earl of Iveagh and heir to the Guinness Brewery.
According to Chiyo Ishikawa, Susan Brotman Deputy Director for Art and Curator of European Painting and Sculpture at SAM, “This exhibition introduces us to one of the greatest private art collections in Europe, assembled in the astonishingly short period of three years. Edward Cecil Guinness exemplifies the rise of a new kind of collector, one not born into the aristocracy but who amassed a personal fortune based on spectacular business success.”
Among the works by Dutch and Flemish masters in the exhibition is Rembrandt’s Portrait of the Artist (ca. 1665), one of the artist’s last self-portraits and one of only a few of his many self-portraits that show him as a working painter. Also included are masterpieces by Johan Vermeer, Joseph Mallord William Turner and Thomas Gainsborough, as well as the Suffolk collection of rare Jacobean portraits.
The home where the paintings usually “live” is Kenwood House, a neoclassical villa in London that Scottish architect Robert Adam remodeled in the eighteenth century. Set in beautiful landscaped parkland in the midst of Hampstead Heath, the elegant villa is one of the most magnificent visitor attractions in London.
When Guinness gave Kenwood House and its paintings to the nation of England it was with the condition that it should remain open every day of the year with free admission. It took quite a bit of work to enable curators to close the house temporarily for some needed repairs and conservation work. Fortunately for us, the paintings are being exhibited in the United States during that work, which should be completed this summer.
SAM is one of the few museums where these amazing paintings can be seen outside of England. The exhibit is on view through May 19, along with an exhibit of local collections from the same time period.
Visit www.seattleartmuseum.org for more details.