Polesden Lacey houses an exceptional collection of paintings. It was created by two remarkable individuals – the self-made brewing magnate William McEwan MP and his daughter Margaret Greville DBE, the redoubtable hostess and last private owner of Polesden Lacey.
The collection at Polesden Lacey
William McEwan bought Polesden Lacey in 1906 for his daughter Margaret, who used it as a venue for entertaining rich and powerful guests in style. She left it to the National Trust in her will so that its art collection could be ‘open to the public at all times and…enjoyed by the largest number of people.'
The taste of father and daughter is strongly expressed at Polesden Lacey and demonstrates their delight in exquisite paintings by the Old Masters. The presence of so many exceptional pictures in this luxurious country house – nearly 100 in their collection – continues to produce a distinctly select, intimate and inviting impression.
This is Margaret, the last owner of Polesden Lacey. She stands before a gleaming cloth of gold in a dramatic hat and sweeping, silk-lined mantle. Carolus-Duran, painter of Parisian society ladies and demi-mondaines, painted Margaret in 1891.
In the same year she married the Hon. Ronald Greville, one of the closest friends of the Prince of Wales, the future King Edward VII. The marriage added social standing to her riches, resulting in a long career as one of the great hosts of the age.
The identity of the sitter in this exquisite portrait is unknown, although she is almost certainly one of the noblewomen who attended upon the French Royal family when the court was at Lyon in the later 1530s.
The costume is simple although the picture is distinguished by the inclusion of the sitter’s modestly folded hands and the presence of a green, gold-embroidered curtain.
The sitter is the Austrian ballet dancer Eva Maria Veigel. She presents herself in a shimmering masquerade costume having removed her mask to return our gaze with a knowing smile. The delicate vitality of this gesture gives away her profession as a dancer ‘Violette’ she had gathered an ardent following in both Vienna and London.
A woman in a dazzling white gown delicately accepts the gallant address of a smiling officer in a richly appointed Dutch interior. Behind them, several more figures congregate around a table, one of whom plays the lute. For all the fine manners on display in this scene, all may not be quite as respectable as it first seems. Military men are generally up to no good in Dutch genre paintings and even music, evocative of lovemaking, carried disreputable overtones.
This is a playful example of a 17th-century Dutch ‘view-through’ picture, for which Pieter de Hooch is particularly noted. A small child bursts through a doorway, having interrupted a game of golf with the older boy in the backyard.
The picture celebrates this moment of exuberant recreation in a world of ordered domesticity – note the scrupulously clean surfaces and neat costumes. It is also a clever demonstration of perspective and light effects, presenting a receding sequence of interior and exterior spaces infused with a cool winter light.
Swathed in expensive textiles, this leading figure of the Leiden school of fine painters presents himself at the height of his powers. Caught in the moment of creation with palette and brushes in hand, Frans Van Mieris rests his elbow alongside a large book and drawing of a nude, evidence of the classical and intellectual grounding of his art.
For all its grand rhetoric, the portrait is nonetheless tiny in format and minute in execution, a virtuosic display of the artist's exquisite skill and acute powers of observation.
The National Trust has recently published 100 Paintings, a book showcasing key paintings from its vast collections. Four of those paintings can be seen at Polesden Lacey.
This picture depicts the beginnings of the Church of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome. Pope Liberius (left) and the patrician John (right) witness an unseasonable fall of snow as it gently describes the foundations of a great cruciform building on the ground. The Virgin Mary, who presides over the scene from heaven, had previously appeared to Liberius in a dream, instructing him to found a church on a miraculously revealed site.
The individuals who commissioned private devotional objects such as this triptych would select saints according to their namesakes, or who were connected to significant places or events in their lives. The hierarchical conception of the sacred realm is reflected in the tiered organisation of the triptych, with the Virgin and Christ Child enthroned in Glory in the central panel and the saints arranged on each wing.
Sir Thomas Lawrence (1769–1830) was a master of painting children and their lively interactions. Here he depicts William Pattisson (1801–32) and his younger brother, Jacob (1803–74), out for a walk in a wild Romantic landscape. Commissioned in 1811, the Pattisson boys were barely children at all by the time the portrait was finished in 1817 – the year William turned 16. Their mother had grown understandably impatient. The resulting picture was much admired when it was finally exhibited, however.
Currently on loan to Dulwich Picture Gallery, this painting is featured in the introduction of the book, this oil painting on canvas and panel is attributed to Gabriel Metsu (Leyden 1629 – Amsterdam 1667). A half-length portrait of a young woman of African descent, head turned over her right shoulder, wearing a red bodice and white headdress, framed in an arched window with a curtain behind and a bas-relief of putti and goat below. Her identity is unknown. In 17th-century Dutch art, people of African descent most often appear as secondary figures, typically as unnamed, attendant figures in portraits or in minor biblical roles. This painting is rare in featuring a black person in their own right and notably a black woman.
From stunning décor in the gold Saloon to state-of-the-art conveniences, explore Margaret Greville's house at Polesden Lacey, a luxurious house fit for royalty. The ground floor of the house is beautifully decorated for A Christmas Masquerade, and open every day (10.30am-3pm) until 5 January (except Christmas Eve and Christmas Day).
From her quiet childhood in Scotland, Margaret Greville climbed the social ladder to become one of the most popular socialites in the Edwardian era and owner of Polesden Lacey.
