British picture restorers, 1630-1950 - B (Part 2)
A selective directory, to be revised and expanded regulary, 1st edition March 2009. Contributions and corrections are welcome, to Jacob Simon at jsimon@npg.org.uk.
James Bonus, Oxford Road, London 1779, Oxford St 1786. Painter and picture restorer.
Richard Bonus, Oriel St, Oxford 1770-1773. Picture restorer.
Both James Bonus (d.1786) and his son, Richard (1726-before 1786?), were picture restorers. James Bonus married Hannah Whitefoot at St James’s Clerkenwell in December 1725. They had two children christened at this church, Richard in 1726 and Charity in 1730.
James Bonus: In his will, made 25 March and proved 18 May 1786, James Bonus, painter of Oxford St, London, stated that he was currently residing at Boughton House, Weekley, Northamptonshire, where he was perhaps working. He left one shilling to his eldest daughter, Charity, and made his youngest daughter, Eleanor Hannah his main beneficiary. She married the following year. He made no mention of his son, Richard, suggesting that he may have been dead by then. His youngest daughter traded independently as a picture cleaner and, as E.H. Bonus, was listed as such in Chapel St, Wardour St in Wakefield’s 1790 directory. Joseph Bonus, drawing master, relationship unknown, appears at 3 Cumberland Place, Marylebone New Road in Holden’s 1802 directory.
Bonus or ‘Bonas’ was a buyer at picture sales in 1744, 1747 and 1748 (‘Sale catalogues of the principal collections of pictures..., 1711-1759’, 2 ms vols, V&A National Art Library, 86.OO.18-19). James Bonus worked for the Earl of Godolphin in 1755 cleaning pictures at Godolphin’s house in St James's, later the same year cleaning further pictures including five overdoor landscapes by Edema and a picture of Noah by Bassan, and mending and gilding frames, and in 1757 cleaning 91 pictures, and framing several others including two by Cornelius Johnson, a fruit piece by Michaelangelo and a landscape by Edema (Northamptonshire Record Office, Fitzwilliam of Milton (Godolphin) Collection, F(M)G/675, 677, 678, receipted accounts).
In 1768 James Bonus submitted an account for cleaning pictures at Shardeloes, Buckinghamshire (Centre for Buckinghamshire Studies, Drake family, D-DR/10/61). At the death of Edward, 9th Duke of Norfolk, James Bonus made an inventory of the pictures at Norfolk House, 11 November 1777, including a wall plan for each room (Francis W. Steer (ed.), Arundel Castle Archives, vol.1, 1968, p.15).
‘Bonus’, usually said to be Richard Bonus the son, but probably James Bonus the father, was well known to Horace Walpole, featuring in letters he received from George Montagu in 1768, 1769 and 1773 (Walpole’s Correspondence, vol.10, 1941, pp.256, 261, 285, vol.32, 1965, p.140). Subsequently, in 1777 Walpole gave Bonus a pair of altar shutters to repair, encouraging a correspondent, Michael Lort, to go to see them at ‘Mr Bonus’s in Oxford Road’ in 1779; the work was completed ‘admirably’ the following year (Walpole’s Correspondence, vol.2, 1937, pp.30, 219, vol.16, 1952, p.184).
Richard Bonus: The son, Richard Bonus, submitted an account in 1769 for 'cleaning and repairing etc. a parcel of pictures’ at the Duke of Beaufort's at Badminton (Gloucestershire Record Office: Badminton Muniments, D2700/RA2/3/3).
Richard Bonus, described as a German living in Oriel St, Oxford, was paid the considerable sum of £450 by Christ Church, Oxford, 1770-3, for restoring the collection of pictures bequeathed to the college by General Guise (Byam Shaw 1967 p.12). Horace Walpole called him ‘the son of Bonus’, claiming that he entirely repainted the pictures and spoiled them (Walpole’s Correspondence, vol.21, 1960, p.429 note, in a later footnote to a letter of 1760); this is a much stronger verdict than that in the Library of the Fine Arts in 1832 (Byam Shaw 1967 p.5).
For abbreviations, see Resources and bibliography.
William Boswell 1839-1859 or later, William Boswell & Son by 1864-1869, W. Boswell 1869-1912 or later, also trading as William Boswell's Galleries 1906-1910, W. Boswell & Son(s) by 1920-1960. Norwich. Carvers and gilders, looking glass manufacturers, later also upholsterer, artists’ colourmen, photographers, picture dealers and restorers, antique dealers.
See British picture framemakers on the National Portrait Gallery website.
(Arthur) James Bourlet 1850-1895, James Bourlet & Sons 1896-1910, James Bourlet & Sons Ltd 1911-1983, James Bourlet Frames 1980-1982, (James) Bourlet Frames Ltd 1980-1991, Bourlet from 1994. London. Carvers and gilders, picture framemakers, fine art packers and exhibition agents, picture cleaners.
See British picture framemakers on the National Portrait Gallery website.
John Bouttats, Compton St, Soho, London c.1740, Golden Head, Blenheim St 1749-1750, 55-56 St Martin’s Lane 1760-1766, 38 Chandos St 1766-1767, York c.1767. Picture dealer, painter and picture restorer.
The activities of John Bouttats (1712-after 1768) as a picture dealer have been explored by David Connell, to whom this account is indebted. He was the second son of the painter Jan Baptiste Bouttats, one of an extended family of artists originating in Antwerp. He was baptised Johannus Baptista Henricus Bouttats in Antwerp on 10 January 1712. His father came to Hull in the 1720s, before moving to York. John Bouttats then moved to London in about 1740, setting up shop in Compton St, Soho, as a painter and picture dealer. He put collections of pictures up for sale in London on seven or more occasions between 1748 and 1766. He was also a buyer at picture sales, at least between 1750 and 1756 (‘Sale catalogues of the principal collections of pictures..., 1711-1759’, 2 ms vols, V&A National Art Library, 86.OO.18-19). In 1767, when described as a picture dealer of 38 Chandois St, retiring from business, his household furniture, pictures and ‘utensils used by a painter’ were advertised for sale by auction (Gazeteer and New Daily Advertiser 13 June 1767).
As a picture restorer, John Bouttats cleaned Sir James Thornhill’s wall paintings at Greenwich Hospital in 1742, being paid £50 the following July ‘for cleaning & repairing the painting in the Hall’ and £18.18s in September ‘for Mending & Repairing the Blemishes in the Ceiling in the Painted Hall’ (Connell 2007 p.118, n.21; Croft-Murray 1962 p.268). In 1750 he carried out an extensive programme of picture restoration for Henry Ingram, 7th Viscount Irwin at Temple Newsam House, Leeds, charging £25.10s for restoring 26 pictures, including £2.10s for ‘lineing, cleaning and mending’ Matteus van Helmont’s Vegetable Market (Earl of Halifax, see Connell 2007 figs 3-4).
Sources: David Connell, ‘John Anderson and John Bouttats: picture dealers in eighteenth-century London’, in Jeremy Warren and Adriana Turpin (eds), Auctions, Agents and Dealers. The Mechanisms of the Art Market 1660-1830, Oxford, 2007, pp.113-20.
Thomas William Breach 1852-1883, William Charles Breach 1884-1912. At 3 Stangate St, Lambeth, London 1851-1856, 3a Stangate St 1857-1881, street renumbered 1881/2, 4 Stangate St 1882-1912. Picture liners and restorers.
There were three generations of the Breach family active in London in the 19th century. Thomas Breach (b. c.1796), a print dealer rather than a restorer, recorded in the 1841 census at the age of 45, would seem to be the individual who married Elizabeth Cooper at St George the Martyr, Southwark in 1816. Thomas William Breach (c.1822-1893), picture restorer, claimed to have established his business by 1844. He was born in Kingsland, Middlesex, and appears to have married in the Lambeth registration district in 1844. His son, William Charles Breach (b.1853), continued the business.
The Breach family can be traced in successive censuses, in 1851 Thomas William Breach, picture liner, age 28, born Kingsland, with family at 3 Stangate St; in 1861 as a picture liner (master), age 38, with family at 3a Stangate St; in 1871 as a journeyman picture liner, age now given as 51, with family including Edward Robert, age 23, restorer of paintings, and William Charles, age 17, framemaker, at 125 Lorrimore Road, Walworth; and in 1881 as a picture framer, still at Lorrimore Road, age now mistakenly recorded as 80, with his wife, Mary Ann, age 60. In Watkins’ 1852 directory, he was recorded at 37 Stangate St, perhaps in error for 3 Stangate St.
William Charles Breach (1853-1929) married in 1880. He was recorded in the 1881 census as a picture liner, age 27, born in Lambeth, living on the premises at 3a Stangate St, Lambeth, with his wife, Clara Shott, also listed as a picture liner, and a young daughter, and in 1901 at 4 Stangate St, as a picture liner, age 49, with wife and six children. He appears to be the individual who died at the age of 76 in the Lambeth registration district in 1929. It is worth noting that in 1881, Walter Henry Breach (1855-1911) was recorded at 4 Addington Square, Camberwell, as a picture restorer, age 26, born in Lambeth, and in the same premises but a different household, Edward Breach (1847-1919?), animal painter, age 32.
Works documented as having been undertaken by Breach include the lining of James Green's Thomas Stothard (National Portrait Gallery, see Walker 1985 p.483) and treatment of the anonymous Self-Portrait of an Unknown Artist age 22 (Tate, formerly identified as by Hamlet Winstanley), which bears Breach’s canvas stamp from 3a Stangate St, Westminster Bridge Road, as established 1844 (information from Sally Woodcock).
John Brealey (1925-2002). Picture conservator in private practice 1952-1975, Head of Paintings Conservation Dept at Metropolitan Museum, New York 1975-1989.
Not included since outside the scope of this directory, but see obituary by David Bomford, Independent 2 January 2003. His archive of books, conservation reports and photographs and a personal archive is held at the Hamilton Kerr Institute.
British Museum, London
Not included here since institutional histories are outside the scope of this directory, but see David M. Wilson, The British Museum: A History, 2002, especially pp.213-5, 301-3, and Joanna Kosek, Conservation Mounting for Prints and Drawings: A manual based on current practice at the British Museum, 2004, especially pp.3-13, ‘Outline history of the presentation of prints and drawings at the British Museum’. See also the outline history of the Conservation and Scientific Department on the Museum’s web site. The following restorers and mounters in this directory worked for the Museum: Arthur Pond 1756-8, Thomas Philipe 1806-10, Stanley Littlejohn, Nigel Henley before 1897, Frank Nowlan 1899. This is a provisional listing, which it is hoped to extend in the next edition of this directory.
Norman Spencer Brommelle (1915-1989). Picture restorer, National Gallery; Keeper of Conservation, Victoria and Albert Museum; Director, Hamilton Kerr Institute, University of Cambridge.
Not included since outside the scope of this directory, but see obituary by Herbert Lank, Burlington Magazine, vol.132, 1990, p.275.
Henry Turner Broome (‘Captain Broome’), Westminster, London 1722, 1728, near the Parliament House 1733. Picture dealer and picture restorer.
Captain Broome has seemed a rather shadowy figure whose life can now begin to be sketched. Henry Turner Broome (c.1683-1733), the eldest of six children of Hezekiah and Rebecca Broome, was christened in 1683 at St Lawrence Jewry. He probably fought in the War of the Spanish Succession, subscribing to Thomas Brodrick’s Compleat History of the Late War in the Netherlands in 1713. He was described as Henry Turner Broom of Westminster in 1722 (London Gazette 16 June 1722). He acted as a picture dealer and restorer from about 1714 until his death in 1733. In his will, made 6 December 1728, revised 6 August 1733 and proved 7 November 1733, Henry Turner Broome of St Margaret Westminster left his estate to his wife, Eleanor except for certain small bequests to friends and to his servant, John Roberts (who succeeded him in business, see London Daily Post 27 November 1739).
As a picture dealer, Henry Turner Broome concluded a contract at Amsterdam in October 1714 with the painter, Friederich Hemeling whereby the latter agreed to come to England for one year and there to paint or copy such pictures as Broome would give him (A. Bredius, ‘Een Schilderscontract’, Oud Holland, vol.49, 1932, p.128). ‘Broom’ purchased pictures at auction twice in 1722 (‘Sale catalogues of the principal collections of pictures..., 1711-1759’, vol.1, ms, V&A National Art Library, 86.OO.18). Broome was the source of a ‘Nicolas Poussin’ landscape, purchased for the considerable sum of £400 by Thomas Wright in 1723 on behalf of James Stanley, 10th Earl of Derby (Russell 1989 pp.156-7).
As a restorer, Broome cleaned two pictures for Lord Harley in 1730 and supplied him with a Holbein, also offering a Van de Velde and other works (Historical Manuscripts Commission, Report on the Manuscripts of His Grace The Duke of Portland, K.G., preserved at Welbeck Abbey, vol.6, 1901, p.33). ‘Brome’ repaired, painted over and regilded the defaced portrait of King Richard II at Westminster Abbey, according to George Vertue, who described him as a picture seller near the Parliament house (Vertue vol.4, p.52); ‘Broom’ was paid for this work by order dated 10 March 1733, ‘for cleaning an antient whole length picture of Richard ye 2nd, for guilding the background & repairing the whole’ (Mrs Reginald Lane Poole, ‘Notes on the History in the Seventeenth Century of the Portraits of Richard II’, Antiquaries Journal, vol.11, 1931, p.156).
For abbreviations, see Resources and bibliography.
H.L. Jennings Brown, 41 George St, Edinburgh 1910-1913, 39 George St 1914-1916, not listed 1917-1919, 20 Queen St 1920-1922, 19 Atholl Crescent 1923-1924, 85 Hanover St 1925, 130 George St 1927-1928. Picture restorer and miniature painter.
Henry Lardner Jennings Brown was born in 1881 in Eastbourne, where his father was drawing master at Clifton House School (advertisement, Deacon's Court Guide, Gazetteer & County Blue Book of Sussex, 1881). His father, H.W. Jennings Brown (1862-1898), a portrait and figure-painter, died young; his grandfather was the Scottish landscape painter, William Beattie Brown RSA (1831-1909), who was initially employed as a picture restorer by the Edinburgh carver and gilder, Henry Doig, before marrying his daughter (see British picture framemakers on the National Portrait Gallery website).
Henry Jennings Brown advertised regularly in the Scotsman from March to May 1911 as a skilled picture restorer and miniature painter. He took John Sanderson Murray to court for non-payment of £279 for restoring and lining pictures in 1913 (The Scotsman, 21 May 1913, see also National Archives of Scotland, CS256/151).
Jennings Brown advertised in the exhibition catalogues of the Royal Scottish Academy, 1921-5 as an expert picture restorer, miniature painter and private adviser and sale agent. In 1924, he claimed to have 25 years of experience in restoration. He used his advertisements to quote A.P. Laurie, Professor of Chemistry to the Royal Academy, London, ‘I have worked much with Mr Jennings Brown, and he is a highly skilled and trustworthy restorer’. In 1923 he additionally quoted William P. Mckay, secretary to the Royal Scottish Academy, ‘I must compliment you, both personally and in the name of the President and Council, for the promptitude and efficiency of the temporary repairs you have effected on the portrait of the King, so seriously damaged’.
Robert Brown, 26 Old Compton St, Soho, London 1792-1795, Somerset Place 1797, 24 Oxendon St, Haymarket 1799-1811, 39 Alpha Cottages, Lisson Grove 1812-1824 or later, Alpha Cottages, 37 Alpha Road 1832. Picture restorer and landscape painter.
Robert Brown (d.1834) was active as a picture restorer from 1797 to 1834. He exhibited as a landscape painter at the Royal Academy from 1792 to 1821 and was evidently well travelled since his views range across southern England, Yorkshire, Edinburgh and North Wales. He was listed as an artist at 24 Oxendon St in Holden’s directory, 1802-8, and took out insurance on these premises with the Sun Fire Office as a landscape painter and picture cleaner on 31 March 1808 (Guildhall Library: Records of Sun Fire Office, vol.445 no.814920). He was described as Robert Brown esq, when he took out insurance on 39 Alpha Cottages with the Sun Fire Office in 1812 (vol.459 no.873777). In his lengthy will, made 2 February 1831 and proved 3 July 1834, Robert Brown, artist of Alpha Road, St Johns Wood, made his daughter, Mary Ann Brown, his main beneficiary.
In his two account books, running from 1797 to 1834, a most unusual survival, Robert Brown noted his clients, giving details of pictures and costs. Brown undertook work for various great country house owners, for picture collectors and for dealers, framemakers and artists. Country house work would sometimes be undertaken by Brown in situ but pictures were more often sent to his studio in London. Six clients whom Brown visited are discussed here in more detail.
Brown’s most significant early client, the Earl of Warwick, was listed 13 times in his account book, 1797-1804, commencing 27 January 1797 with an account for work that year totalling about £20, including ‘Backlining a Panel’ by Rubens, the purchase from Brown of five drawings by Wilson, presumably Richard Wilson, for £6.6s, a new burnished gold frame for a Van de Velde seapiece for £4.6s and porterage from Warwick Castle and the City. Brown spent three months and three days at Warwick Castle in 1799, cleaning and repairing pictures, charging £65.12s.6d at a rate of £5.5s a week. In all, his charges for work for Lord Warwick came to £675.11s.6d, a very considerable sum.
For the Earl Harcourt, 1797-1830, another very good client, Brown cleaned pictures in his studio, e.g., ‘lining, cleaning &c a portrait of late Earl Harcourt by Sir J. Reynolds’ for £2.12s.6d in 1804. He also spent 15 days at Nuneham House, Oxfordshire, in 1807, treating Lord Harcourt’s pictures for £15.15s, or a guinea a day, and revisited in 1809 and 1822. He also purchased for him oval portraits of Addison and Steel, and another of Gay, in 1807. For Lord Frederick Campbell, another early client, Brown undertook considerable work in 1797 and 1798, both in his own studio at a cost of £27.1s and at Coombe Bank in Kent where he spent 14 days in October 1797, charging £9.16s at a rate of 14s a day. He also worked for Lady Ibbetson, 1800-3, visiting Down Hall, Essex, for 15 days in 1800 at a cost of £15.15s or a guinea a day, also supplying gold leaf.
For the Earl of Chesterfield, he restored a portrait of Dryden (now Sterling Library, University of London) in 1809 for £2.5s and in summer 1816 he treated various pictures, room by room, at Chesterfield’s London house for £50.15s. For the Duke of Grafton, Brown worked 1815-29, including visiting Euston Hall in 1829, where he charged £76.15s.6d for ‘Pictures cleaned, repaired, stipled &c’. He also worked for Lord Euston, 1823, and other members of the family.
Other clients from the nobility included the Lords Anson 1807, Ashburnham 1819-23, Brownlow 1810, Cornwallis 1822, Curzon 1798-1800, Dimsdale 1805-14, Downe 1811-27, Essex 1805-25, Heathfield 1799-1801, Lonsdale 1821-31, Loughborough 1798-9, Middleton 1809-33, Orford 1823, Rivers 1830, Selsey 1813-34, Uxbridge 1810-11, Vernon 1797, Walpole 1817-18 and Willoughby de Brooke 1797-1807, as well as Lady Howe 1803-5 and the Marchioness of Lansdowne 1819.
Among picture collectors, Sir George Beaumont is mentioned 10 times between 1802 and 1826, often with reference to the lining of his own work but also for such items as the preparation of a pot of asphaltum for 1s in 1818 and ‘Lining, Cleaning, Stipling &c a Landscape by G. Poussin’ for £4.12s and similar work on another landscape by Poussin. Interestingly, Brown did not treat any of the old master paintings in Beaumont’s gift to the National Gallery, on which Beaumont was advised by William Seguier (qv). Mention should also be made of further clients of Brown, including Sir Robert Ainslie 1803-6, Sir William Hamilton 1802 and Sir William and Lady Guise 1802-14. For Sir George Warren in 1801, his charges included ‘cleaning two whole length portraits of ladies by Sir J. Reynolds £4.4s, Ditto Sir George & my lady by Rumney £2.10s’.
Institutional clients appear to be restricted to three: the Archbishop of Canterbury, 1807-12, Dulwich College, 1810-17, and the Royal Asiatic Society in 1828. The Archbishop had three portraits of his predecessors at Lambeth Palace restored in 1807. Brown undertook considerable work for Mr Allen, Warden of Dulwich College, 1810-17, preceding the opening of Dulwich Picture Gallery in 1817. This cost about £33 in 1810, £26 in 1812, £68 in 1813, £29 in 1814, £59 in 1815 and £41 in 1817 (information derived from extracts kindly supplied by John Ingamells). Apart from the purchase of a portrait of a lady by Joshua Reynolds for £10 in 1810, his charges related to the cleaning and repair of paintings, the repair of picture frames and the transport of pictures. By far his most expensive task was the earliest, ‘Cleaning Repairing &c a large Picr. Transfiguration after Raphael – Giulio Romano’ for £16.12. At first, he worked mainly on English portraits, many from the Cartwright collection, but from 1813 his focus shifted to old master paintings. It is not known whether his work from 1814 was carried out under the supervision of Ralph Cockburn (qv), first keeper of the Dulwich Gallery.
Dealers provided a significant flow of work for Brown. ‘Mr Smart’, presumably William Smart (qv), appears 29 times between 1797 and 1809 and Mr Colnaghi 24 times between 1800 and 1816. Interestingly, Colnaghi received a trade allowance of 15% on Brown’s first bill to Lord George Beresford in 1813, presumably as a result of a recommendation.
Brown also worked for artists and picture framemakers, who might sell pictures as a sideline or arrange for restoration work to be undertaken on behalf of a client. Artists include ‘Mr Edridge’, presumably Henry Edridge, 1801 and 1804, Thomas Daniell, 1806-28, and his nephew William Daniell, 1810-29, and George Perfect Harding who had a portrait of a man by Holbein cleaned in 1809.
Framemakers include John Harris of Conduit St from 1797, ‘Mr Allwood’, presumably Thomas Allwood, who spent £1.3s on lining and cleaning a Hobbema-style landscape in April 1798, ‘Mr Merle’, presumably Thomas Merle, who appears in the account book seven times between 1797 and 1801, and John Smith of Swallow St in 1809, who had two pictures cleaned. ‘Mr Harris’ features in Brown’s accounts from 1797 to 1810, and is specifically linked to John Harris by the inclusion of his Conduit St address in 1805 and 1810. He paid Brown in 1798 for ‘ten Etchings tinted by Ibbetson’ for £5.5s, in 1801 for 18 small brushes for 3s, in 1803 for a parcel of drawings of Alexander etc for £1.1s and for ‘Restoring the white of a Drawing’ for 4s and in 1805 for a quire of cartridge paper for 6s and a portfolio stand for 8s. For these framemakers, see British picture framemakers on the National Portrait Gallery web site.
Brown also supplied picture frames, initially apparently made by himself but from 1818 increasingly by William Paley, whose name features in his accounts. For the Rev. John Granville in 1806, a bill for picture frames and regilding work is inserted in the account book and includes ‘a handsom gilt burnished frame for a boy a sleep’ for £7.4s and another frame ornamented in the French style for £5.12s.
Sources: Two account books, 1797-1834, together with a typescript list of Brown’s clients, prepared by Robin Halwas Ltd, 1993 (V&A National Art Library, MSL/1993/3/1, ex-Sotheby’s, English Literature, 19 July 1993 lot 445).
Thomas Boden Brown, 75 Great Titchfield St, London 1826-1828, 3 Russell Place, Fitzroy Square 1832-1834, 42 Howland St, Fitzroy Square 1841-1856 (listed as Thomas Benjamin Brown 1841-3). Picture dealer, cleaner and restorer, artist.
Thomas Boden Brown (c.1790-1875), the son of Philip and Sarah Brown, was christened in January 1790 at St Andrew, Hertford. From his evidence to the 1853 Select Committee on the National Gallery, we learn that he left off painting to become a picture cleaner and spent 12 months, when he first came to London, with the restorer, John Rising (qv), who died in 1817. He claimed to have been extensively engaged as a picture cleaner for 32 or 33 years, that is from 1820 and that for the last 10 years of Thomas Lawrence’s life he cleaned and repaired his pictures. This is confirmed by payments in 1831 from the Lawrence estate of £7.10s to ‘Mr Brown’ on 3 February for cleaning and repairing pictures, and £8.9s.6d to ‘T. Brown’ on 2 April (V&A National Art Library, MSL/1938/1923).
Brown told the Select Committee that he had cleaned six of Sir Robert Peel’s finest Dutch pictures and the late Duke of Gloucester’s pictures until his death. At least 30 years previously he had cleaned the Rev. Holwell Carr’s Dido and Aeneas (by Gaspard Dughet, National Gallery) and some 25 or 26 years ago Jeremiah Harman’s Age of Innocence by Joshua Reynolds (Tate Gallery). He also reported that he had been engaged to clean pictures at the National Gallery in 1844 on Peel’s recommendation but that his work was restricted to six pictures, Rubens’s Judgement of Paris, three small pictures by Teniers and two by Maes; the cost of this work appears to have been £37.16s (National Gallery Archive, NG13/1/1, Cash Book 1840-55; see also An Exhibition of Cleaned Pictures (1936-1947), exh.cat., National Gallery, 1947, pp.55-6).
According to Wynn Ellis, writing in 1874, but referring to his purchase of a landscape by John Constable in 1832, ‘T. Boaden Brown, the dealer’ was a friend of Constable who frequently saw him (Ian Fleming-Williams and Leslie Parris, The Discovery of Constable, 1984, p.78). We know little else about his personal life, beyond the death of his wife Sarah in 1851 (The Times 27 February 1851). A sale of Thomas Boden Brown’s picture stock was held by Phillips on 20 May 1856. He died age 84 in the Wandsworth registration district in 1875.
Sources: Report from the Select Committee on the National Gallery, 1853, pp.62-71.
Lewis Brucciani 1822-1844, Domenico Brucciani 1846-1881, D. Brucciani & Co 1882-1906, D. Brucciani & Co Ltd 1906-1921. At Lower Lambeth Marsh, London 1822-1824, 15 Denton St, Somers Town 1824, 9 Winchester St, Pentonville 1827-1828, 131 Drury Lane 1828, 5 Little Russell St 1829-1860, 1 Leather Lane 1857-1880, 58 Baker St 1853, 5, 6, 7 and 8 Little Russell St 1858-1860, street renamed and renumbered 1860/1, 36 and 39 Russell St 1862-1864, Galleria delle Belle Arti, 40 Russell St WC 1864-1901, 13 Bucknall St 1895-1901, 254, 256, 258 Goswell Road, EC 1902-1921. Figure maker 1822, Plaster figure man 1841, Formatore and modeller 1870s.
The early history of the Brucciani family as Italian figure makers in London requires elucidation. Lewis Brucciani was in business in Lambeth as early as 1822. His wife Lucy Brucciani (d.1838) took out insurance in 1824 in trust for him as an artificial flower manufacturer, and later the same year also as a plaster figure maker, but it was not until 1828 that Lewis Brucciani set up in business in Drury Lane. Domenico Brucciani eventually took over this business but not before he had traded independently elsewhere (see below). Domenico was presumably Lewis and Lucy Brucciani’s son, but it is not clear how he relates to another figure maker, Nicholas or Nicolao Brucciani, found at 24 Wellington Terrace, Waterloo Road from 1839 to 1843, whose age was given as 60 in the 1841 census. Two further Italian plaster figure makers by the name of Brucciani, both born at Barga, close to Lucca, were recorded in the 1881 census in Camberwell, Raffaele, age 24, and Pietro, age 19.
Domenico Brucciani (c.1815-1880) is said to have been born in Lucca in 1815. He married Mary Ann Richardson in 1841 at St Martin-in-the-Fields, apparently remarrying, as Domenico Giovanni Brucciani, in 1846 at Richmond. He traded from Little Russell St from 1829. He also traded from 1 Leather Lane in partnership with Giovanni Graziani as plaster figure makers, a business which he continued following the dissolution of the partnership in 1857 (London Gazette 20 March 1857). When Brucciani’s new premises, the Galleria delle Belle Arti, opened at 40 Russell St in 1864, the size of his new gallery of casts was given as 100 by 25 feet (Art Journal, vol.3, 1864, p.330). He worked as a modeller for the South Kensington Museum (now the Victoria and Albert Museum) and the British Museum, taking casts of items in their collections and supplying other casts. He described himself as ‘Formatore [i.e., maker] & Modeller to the Science and Art Department’, as well as to the British Museum and the Royal Academy of Arts, on his handsome blue invoice paper (examples from 1870s, National Portrait Gallery records, Duplicates of Accounts, vol.1, pp.71-3, 104).
Following Brucciani’s death at the age of 65 in 1880, his business and stock-in-trade were advertised for sale (The Times 26 May 1880). By 1891, an individual by the name of Caproni was trading as D. Brucciani & Co (The Times 10 December 1891). He would appear to be Joseph L. Caproni (1846-1900), who was recorded in the 1881 census at 148 Grays Inn Road as a plaster moulder (arts), age 34, born in Italy but living in London since at least 1868, when his eldest son was born. There were subsequent close connections between the Caproni and Brucciani families, as is apparent from the record of the birth in 1926 of Enrico Brucciani to a mother by the maiden name of Caproni.
By the time of the First World War, as the demand for plaster casts declined, the Brucciani business was finding it increasingly difficult to carry on, as was reported in 1916 (The Times 26 December 1916). In response to the threat that their unique collection of plaster moulds and casts might be dispersed, a petition led by Sir Edward Poynter PRA, that the Government should purchase the collection, was addressed to the Prime Minister but without success. The shipowner, Sir William Petersen, then supplied the means for the business to carry on during the war. The business went into liquidation in 1921, when a meeting of the company was held at the Victoria and Albert Museum (London Gazette 15 July 1921). The company was taken over by the Board of Education and run by the Victoria and Albert as a museum service, renamed the Department for the Sale of Casts, until financial losses forced its closure in 1951.
The business’s products and activities: The nature of Domenico Brucciani’s stock can be traced from their trade catalogues (V&A National Art Library). A catalogue of casts, from 5 Little Russell St, thus probably dating to the 1840s or 1850s, claimed to offer the largest collection in Europe of antique and modern statuary, Greek, Roman and mediaeval ornament, ‘to be viewed gratis’. Brucciani claimed to have extended his stock by importing from Rome, Paris etc a large assortment of the best works of modern artists. These included casts of works by Thorwaldsen, Canova, Sir Richard Westmacott, Baily, Gibson, and Flaxman (Catalogue of Casts for sale by D. Brucciani, n.d., 50pp, plus Catalogue of Casts from Mediaeval Art, 37.R Box XI). A catalogue from 40 Russell St, thus dating to the 1860s or 1870s, offered a similar range, also advertising that subjects could be supplied in artificial stone for gardens and parks (Catalogue of Reproductions of Antique and Modern Sculpture, 56pp, 37.X.60, as [1864]).
Brucciani’s most important commission for the South Kensington Museum, according to the Victoria and Albert Museum website, was the casting of the 12th-century Portico de la Gloria, an 18-metre wide section of the façade of the cathedral at Santiago de Compostela, undertaken in 1866. The National Portrait Gallery owns 24 electrotypes and works in plaster cast by Brucciani, the electrotypes commissioned by the Gallery between 1869 and 1877 from Elkington & Co from casts made by Brucciani, and the plasters acquired from various sources between 1878 and 1911.
The business also treated sculpture. D. Brucciani & Co Ltd worked for the National Portrait Gallery, 1912-20, mainly on plaster busts, for example, cleaning and colouring six plaster casts by Woolner for £3.3s in 1912, ‘Removing old paint & colouring Black Bronze’ George Gammon Adams’s Sir Charles Napier for £2.2s in 1914, and treating in a similar manner 33 plaster casts for £52.16s in 1915 (Duplicates of Accounts, vol.7, pp.79, 112, 134, 150, vol.8, p.42). Subsequently, the Victoria and Albert Museum, as successors to Brucciani, undertook somewhat similar work for the National Portrait Gallery, including for example repairing Rysbrack’s terracotta, Sir Robert Walpole, for £5 in 1926 (Duplicates of Accounts, vol.9, p.57).
Sources: Francis Haskell and Nicholas Penny, Taste and the Antique: The Lure of Classical Sculpture 1500-1900, 1981, pp.117-8, 121-3 (for the supply of casts after the antique); Guildhall Library: Records of Sun Fire Office, vols 496 no.1019230, 500 no.1019514, 512 no.1063656, 518 no.1094287, 519 no.1084751, 527 no.1109487, 530 no.1125769, 544 no.1184057, 550 no.1208380; National Archives, Treasury: Treasury Board Papers and In-Letters, T 1/12516, for records relating to the Board of Education’s acquisition of the business, 1920; National Archives, Department of Education and Science and predecessors: Establishment Files ED 23/540, for records, 1919-34, on taking over the business and its subsequent reorganisation.
Charles Buttery 1839-1878, Horace Buttery 1878-1900, Ayerst Hooker Buttery 1900-1929, Horace Ayerst Buttery 1929-1940, 1945-1962. At 33 Greek St, Soho, London 1839-1842, 46 Greek St 1843-1857, 17 Soho Square 1858-1861, 13 Old Bond St 1861-1862, 13 Piccadilly 1863, 173 Piccadilly 1864-1904, 177 Piccadilly (‘opposite Burlington House’) 1905-1940, 173 New Bond St by 1948-1962. Picture cleaners and restorers, picture dealers, later picture experts.
There were restorers by the name of Buttery active in picture restoration from the 1830s until the 1960s. Charles Buttery was in business in 1839 and was followed by his son, Horace Buttery, in 1878. He in turn was succeeded in 1900 by his assistant, Ayerst Hooker, who took the name Buttery, to become Ayerst Hooker Buttery, to be followed at his death in 1929 by his own son, Horace Buttery.
Charles Buttery: Charles Buttery (1812-78), the son of William and Jane Buttery, was born in Hertford on 21 July 1812 and christened 26 January 1819 at St Antholin Budge Row, London. He married Harriett Goode (1810-90) in 1832 at St Giles Camberwell. Their first child, Margaret Elizabeth, was christened in Leeds in 1833. Subsequent children were christened at Christchurch Southwark in 1834, St Anne Soho in 1835, St Peter Walworth in 1837, St Anne Soho again in 1840 and 1842, and at St Pancras Old Church in 1855. It remains to be established whether there was a connection between Charles Buttery and the picture dealers, Buttery & Hills operating at 8 Queens Head Row, Newington Butts in the early 1830s, or with Robert Buttery at 33 Greek Street in 1841.
Charles Buttery was listed in the 1851 census at 46 Greek St as a restorer of paintings, age 38, living with his wife and seven children, and in 1861 at 17 Soho Square with a further child. He advertised in 1861 that he had removed his studio from 17 Soho Square to the Gallery, 13 Old Bond St (The Times 5 October 1861). In 1871 he was living at 173 Piccadilly with his wife and four children. He died at this address on 30 January 1878; his estate was valued at under £7,000 (information from Lorne Campbell). His collection of pictures was sold at auction three years after his death (The Times 16 May 1881).
Charles Buttery worked for the National Gallery from 1858, mainly on British paintings (National Gallery Archive, NG13/1/3-5, Cash Books). In the National Gallery collection, he restored the Giulio Romano workshop Infancy of Jupiter for £25 in 1859 and cleaned and restored Gainsborough’s Mrs Siddons for £16.16s in 1862. Among pictures now in the Tate Gallery, in 1864 he restored Turner’s Regulus for £8.8s and John Thomson’s Loch-an-Eileanin for £10.10s, in 1866 he repaired George Lance’s The Red Cap for £3.3s, George Jones’s Lady Godiva for £7.7s and David Wilkie’s Peep-o'-Day Boys' Cabin for £9.9s (a work which was lined by William Morrill) and in 1867 George Jones’s Burning Fiery Furnace. He repaired Thomas Stothard’s The Vintage for £50 in 1870, a picture which had been restored by Henry Merritt (qv) little more than 10 years previously. He lined and restored Joshua Reynolds’s Holy Family for £18.18s in 1869 and repaired Daniel Maclise’s Play Scene in Hamlet for £32.12s in 1873.
As Surveyor of the Queen’s Pictures, Richard Redgrave employed Buttery to clean and restore Hugo van der Goes’s Trinity Altarpiece in 1871-2, a major undertaking which took some 83 days (Lorne Campbell, The Early Flemish Pictures in the Collection of Her Majesty The Queen, Cambridge, 1985, pp.44-6). Earlier, in 1864, Buttery had ‘stopped the damages most successfully’ in William Mulready’s The Wolf and the Lamb (Royal Collection, see Millar 1969 p.87).
In 1856, Buttery was sent a picture of Charles I by Van Dyck, and other unspecified pictures from Goodwood House, according to insurance documentation (West Sussex Record Office: Raper Archives, RAPER/204).
Horace Buttery: Horace Buttery (1846-1900) continued the business following his father, Charles Buttery’s death in 1878. In census records, Horace Buttery was recorded in 1871 as a restorer of paintings, born in London, living with his father, in 1881 as a restorer of pictures and an organist, and in 1891 as an artist, restorer of pictures and organist, together with his assistant, Ayerst Hooker, age 23. Horace Buttery died on 12 February 1900, when his effects were valued at £9,946 (information from Lorne Campbell); he left his property to his assistant, Ayerst Hooker, subject to certain legacies being paid in cash to his brother, sisters and other relatives.
Horace Buttery held an appointment to Queen Victoria as a picture cleaner and restorer from at least 1885 (London Gazette 27 January 1885). Horace Buttery, followed by A.H. Buttery, had an account with the artists’ suppliers, Roberson, from 173 Piccadilly and 177 Piccadilly, 1895-1929 (Woodcock 1997). He sold four works to the National Gallery, 1891-9, including Canaletto’s Interior of the Rotunda at Ranelagh.
‘Buttery’ worked extensively for Sir Richard Wallace, 1879-84, on pictures now in the Wallace Collection. This work included cleaning Carlo Crivelli’s St Roch, relaying the paint surface of Bernardino da Luini’s Virgin and Child in a landscape, revarnishing and cradling Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, attributed to van der Meulen, cleaning the Bronzino studio Eleonora di Toledo, cleaning and relining Sassoferrato’s Mystic Marriage of Saint Catherine, cleaning Velazquez’s Prince Balthasar Carlos in Silver, cleaning Philippe de Champaigne’s The Annunciation, relining Jacob Backer's Portrait of an elderly Woman, relining and heavily ironing Frans Hals’s The Laughing Cavalier, relining Meindert Hobbema’s A Stormy Landscape, relining the Rembrandt studio Jean Pellicorne and his son Casper, cleaning Edwin Landseer’s The Arab Tent, and treating three works by J.L.E. Meissonier, The Guard Room, Polichinelle and A Cavalier, Time of Louis XIII (Le capitaine), among other pictures, some of which were revarnished only (Ingamells 1985 pp.115, 129, 217, 266, 343, 409, Ingamells 1986 pp.134, 161, 166, 168, 171, 175, 178, 180, 256, Ingamells 1989 p.64, 68, 73, 78, 260, 299, Ingamells 1992 pp.20, 89, 135, 153, 291).
Buttery worked on pictures in the University Galleries, Oxford, following their move to what is now the Ashmolean Museum, firstly restoring the Tradescant paintings in 1897 (Norman 2009 p.23). The Buttery family worked on the Oxford collection for many years (see below).
Horace Buttery also undertook country house work. He cleaned and restored 33 paintings at Saltram House in 1883-4 (Sitwell 1998 p.136). He and his successors, 1885-1930s, corresponded with Lucy Ogilvy, née Wickham, and her father, about the upkeep and repair of pictures at Binsted Wyck, Hampshire (Hampshire Record Office: Wickham family, 38M49/E6/22). He also corresponded, 1888-9, concerning cleaning pictures at Bulstrode, Buckinghamshire (Centre for Buckinghamshire Studies: Bulstrode Estate, D-RA/5/31/2). He restored paintings at Cirencester Park in 1898-9 including the anonymous Lancelot Bathurst and Godfrey Kneller’s Allen 1st Lord Bathurst (Bathurst 1908 pp.90, 116).
Ayerst Hooker Buttery: Ayerst Hooker (1868-1929), son of Edward Hooker, was born in the Isle of Sheppey, Kent, in 1868. He was living with his family in Limehouse at the time of the 1881 census, but by 1891 was at 173 Piccadilly, working as Horace Buttery’s assistant, and was still there in 1901, newly married, with his wife Gertrude, age 21. Following the death of Horace Buttery in February 1900, Ayerst Hooker added Buttery to his own surname (Penny 2004 p.xiv). As A. Buttery, on 1 May 1900, he offered the National Gallery a double portrait by Gossaert (NG 1689, see Trustees’ Minutes) and in 1925 he gave Govert Flinck’s Self portrait aged 24. He ran the business from 173 Piccadilly and later from 177 Piccadilly, living at various addresses in Hampstead. In the 1911 census he gave himself as a picture expert, valuer and restorer, and as an employer. He died on 29 March 1929, leaving an estate valued at nearly £105,000, and his widow, Gertrude Emily, died on 13 February 1930 (information from Lorne Campbell).
Ayerst Hooker Buttery was allowed to style himself as picture cleaner and restorer by appointment to the late Queen Victoria (London Gazette 1 November 1901). From 1909 he cleaned paintings in the Ashmolean Museum (Norman 2009 p.23). In 1922, ‘Buttery’ relined Thomas Lawrence’s Sir John Soane (Sir John Soane’s Museum, information from Hilary Floe and Helen Dorey). The business’s work from 1924 is documented and is recorded below.
Horace Ayerst Buttery: Horace Ayerst Buttery (1902-62), Ayerst Hooker Buttery’s son, studied at the Grosvenor School of Art and with Leon Underwood (Who’s Who in Art, 6th ed., 1952). For some years he ran the business under his father’s name from 177 Piccadilly. In 1936 he was listed as a picture expert and valuer, and in 1951 as a picture expert, restorer and dealer. He served in the Royal Engineers during World War Two (London Gazette 16 July 1940). He held an appointment to Queen Elizabeth II as a picture restorer, 1955-61 (London Gazette 15 July 1955, 29 December 1961), continuing a long family connection with the Royal Collection. He produced an essay on Joshua Reynolds’s painting technique, published in 1958 (appendix to Derek Hudson, Reynolds, 1958, pp.248-50). He died in November 1962 at 11 Cresswell Gardens, London SW5, leaving an estate valued at more than £75,000 (information from Lorne Campbell), with specific bequests of miniatures to the Fitzwilliam Museum and of photographs of restoration work to the Courtauld Institute (The Times 10 April 1963).
In his obituary notice, Benedict Nicolson described Buttery’s reputation ‘as high as that of any restorer in England’, adding that he would refuse to clean a picture, if he thought it good enough as it was, however safe and simple and remunerative the job would have been, and describing him as a charming and welcoming individual. Anthony Blunt in the catalogue of the Horace Buttery Memorial exhibition highlighted his technical ability combined with a sensitive eye, developed by long and careful study in European galleries, firstly with his father and then with his close friend, Colin Agnew: ‘In fact Buttery had already become that phenomenon, rare in the art-world even now and almost unique then, a man in whom manual skill was matched with visual sensibility and wide learning.’
Restoration work: It is said that when he was left in charge of the business at the age of 26 many of his father’s clients initially turned to other restorers, according to Anthony Blunt, doubting the competence of so young a man but some, notably Lord Stanhope, recognised his ability and provided him with pictures to restore. During the war he served in Camouflage. Subsequently, on occasion he worked in co-operation with Freeman (qv), for example on works from the Royal Collection and the Iveagh Bequest, Kenwood (see below).
Horace Buttery’s work can be documented through three daybooks in the Hamilton Kerr Institute (MS.1110, 1111, and 1112-1993), covering the years 1924-1962, although the prices paid for his work have been blacked out in the books. The books begin in April 1924, when he was 21, and there is no way of being sure whether it was he or his father, Ayerst Hooker Buttery, who was actually responsible for the work. The survey below provides a comprehensive listing of institutional clients, 1924-40 and 1945-62 (the business closed during the war), and a very selective listing of private clients, 1924-37 (it is hoped to provide information on the period from 1937 in the next edition of this directory).
For the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, the Buttery family worked as early as 1897 (see above). The daybooks document work, 1926-38 and 1945-55, including joining, buttoning, and restoring joints on A Woman seated beside a Table, attributed to Simon Kick, in 1926, laying blisters, cleaning and restoring Giovanni di Paolo’s The Baptism of Christ, 1929, lining, cleaning and restoring Gaspard Dughet’s View of Tivoli, 1929, treating woodworm, laying blisters, cleaning and restoring Piero di Cosimo’s Forest Fire, 1933, repairing a panel split, cleaning and restoring Agnolo Bronzino’s Giovanni de' Medici, 1934, lining, cleaning and restoring Joshua Reynolds’s 2nd Duke of Grafton, 1934, and John Riley’s Elias Ashmole, 1938, and restoring Millais’s Return of the Dove to the Ark, 1945. He also restored Filippo Lippi’s The Meeting at the Golden Gate in 1955 (Mark Norman, ‘Paintings conservation and the Ashmolean’, The Ashmolean, no.55, summer 2008, p.27), and treated Gianlorenzo Bernini’s Portrait of a Man.
Elsewhere in Oxford, he worked for the Bodleian Library 1939, 1948-61, and for various colleges, namely All Souls 1946, Balliol 1930-3, extensively for Christ Church 1936-40, 1946-62, Corpus Christi 1934 (Johannes Corvus’s Bishop Fox), 1936-7, 1947, Queens 1958-60, St John’s 1949, 1953-6, Trinity 1934, 1956-8, Wadham 1946, 1948 and Worcester 1934, 1947-8. For Christ Church, he worked initially on 15th and earlier 16th-century paintings and subsequently on some early 17th-century Italian works (Byam Shaw 1967 p.13), and additionally he reduced to original size, cleaned and restored Van Dyck’s Continence of Scipio, 1949, and treated Tintoretto’s Portrait of a Man and Hugo van der Goes’s Virgin and St John.
For the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, Buttery worked extensively, 1933-8, 1947-59, cleaning and restoring, and sometimes lining, some of the finest pictures in the collection including Bartholomeus van der Helst’s Portrait of a man, 1933, Joseph Wright of Derby’s Lord Fitzwilliam, 1934, and Mrs Ashton, 1935, Luis Tristan’s Nativity, 1935, Carracci’s St Roch and the angel, 1936, Simone Martini’s Three Saints, 1948, Zurbaran’s St Rufina, 1948, Frans Hals’s Portrait of a Young Man, 1949, Domenico Veneziano’s small panels, The Annunciation and St Zenobius, 1949, Titian’s Reclining Venus, 1949, Guido Reni’s Ecce Homo, 1955, Salvator Rosa’s L’Umana Fragilita, 1958, Rubens’s sketch, Earth and Water, 1958, and Titian’s Tarquin and Lucretia, 1959 (described as previously cleaned by Helmut Ruhemann). Featured in the 1963 memorial exhibition were Liberale da Verona’s Scene with Sts Peter and John and Meindert Hobbema’s Wooded Landscape. He also worked for various Cambridge colleges and institutions, namely Fisher House 1938-9, Girton 1946, Jesus 1935, Sidney Sussex 1936-7, Trinity 1962 and Trinity Hall 1930.
For the Royal Collection, Buttery worked extensively, 1934, 1946-55, including restoring three portraits by Holbein, laying and repairing blisters on Derich Born and on ‘Hans of Antwerp’, both in 1935, and parquetting and laying paint on John(?) Reskimer, 1936. He also laid loose paint on whole-lengths by Thomas Lawrence including Blucher, 1935, and Prince Leopold, 1936. After the Second World War, he cleaned and restored pictures by Rembrandt, namely Noli me tangere, 1948, Rembrandt’s Mother, 1950, Lady holding a fan, 1951, and Self-portrait, 1955. He also cleaned and restored Gainsborough’s whole-lengths of Queen Charlotte and George III in 1950, noting in his day book, ‘Blisters laid by Freeman’, and Mabuse’s Three Children of Christian II. He cleaned Van Dyck’s Portrait of a man (Millar 1968 p.307).
For London museums, Buttery undertook limited work, most notably for the Tate Gallery, 1947-51, but also for the Victoria and Albert Museum 1939-53 (notably J.M.W. Turner’s East Cowes in 1939), the National Gallery 1949 (Gainsborough’s Margaret Gainsborough and Landscape with Gipsies, both now Tate), the Courtauld Institute 1948, the National Portrait Gallery 1961 (Joshua Reynolds’s William Strahan) and Sir John Soane’s Museum 1962 (Joshua Reynolds’s The Snake in the Grass). For the Tate, he cleaned and restored several works by J.M.W. Turner, including Abingdon Bridge: early morning, A view of Greenwich looking towards London, Landscape with River running beneath a castle and the small View of Caernarvon Castle in 1948, Shipping at the mouth of a river in 1949, and the upright A Mountain Glen in 1951. He also treated pictures in the collection at Apsley House, starting with cleaning and repairing Jan Steen’s The Dissolute Household for the National Gallery in 1947, and continuing for the Victoria and Albert Museum, 1949-59, including cleaning Velazquez’s The Waterseller, 1958; other pictures cleaned by him are listed in Kauffmann 1982 pp.40, 74, 131, 132, 139.
For public art galleries outside London and overseas, Buttery worked for Aberdeen 1927-9 (D.G. Rossetti’s Mariana and Luther Smith’s Queen Victoria), Victoria Art Gallery, Bath 1947, Birmingham 1950, 1960, Cardiff 1947-8, 1954, 1961-2 (mainly pictures by Richard Wilson including Caernarvon Castle), Dublin 1929-30 (P. Brueghel’s Marriage Feast and Guardi’s Bucentaur), 1952-4, Leeds 1953 (Joshua Reynolds’s Lady Hertford), Manchester 1949-50 and Toronto 1959. For the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Buttery cleaned and restored Henry Raeburn’s James Wardrop, 1953, Giovanni Battista Tiepolo's The Banquet of Cleopatra, 1955 (undertaken at the V&A on account of its very large size), Nicolas Poussin's The Crossing of the Red Sea in 1960, and Thomas Gainsborough's Charles Cornwall in 1961 (see also Hoff 1973 pp.149, 111, 65).
Other organisations which first came to him before the Second World War include the Inner Temple 1935-9, Middlesex County Council for the Westminster Guildhall pictures 1933 (Gainsborough’s Duke of Northumberland), 1938-9, 1945-7, the Royal Academy of Arts 1932 (William Allan’s The Shepherd’s Grace), the RIBA 1935, Rugby School 1935-9, 1948-9, and St Bartholomew’s Hospital 1929.
After the War, he worked for various organisations including: Arts Council 1946-7, Barber Institute, Birmingham 1958-60, British Council 1959, Charterhouse School 1959, London County Council 1949-61, Office of Works 1952-3 (Hans Eworth’s Duke of Norfolk at Audley End), Royal College of Music 1948-9, Royal Society 1947-9, Society of Antiquaries 1952-5 and the Watts Gallery, Compton, 1960. For the London County Council, Buttery cleaned and restored most of the pictures in the Iveagh Bequest, Kenwood, 1949-59, starting with Gainsborough’s Lady Howe and the Rembrandt and the Frans Hals in 1949, the Vermeer, Aelbert Cuyp’s View of Dordrecht and Joshua Reynolds’s Kitty Fisher in 1950, Gainsborough’s Going to Market in 1951 and Turner’s Storm on a Sea Shore in 1953. On occasion, Freeman (qv) undertook part of the work, 1949-51. For a fuller list, see Julius Bryant, Kenwood: Paintings in the Iveagh Bequest, 2003, pp.30, 39, 49, 54, 60, 65, 69, 76, 95, 116, 133, 136, 139, 163, 183, 192, 200, 207, 217, 223, 311, 329, 334, 339, 346.
For the National Trust, Horace Buttery treated pictures from various houses, 1949-60: in 1950 two early portraits by William Larkin from Charlecote, in 1957-8 Gainsborough’s 3rd Earl of Bristol at Ickworth, and also pictures from Ascott in 1958, Saltram in 1959 and 1960, Waddesdon and Stourhead in 1960. From Petworth, Buttery cleaned and restored various pictures, 1952-9, including Cuyp’s View of a Dutch Town, 1952, Van Dyck’s Sir Robert Shirley and Lady Shirley, reducing them top and bottom to their original size, 1954, Van Dyck’s Lord Strafford, portraits by Reynolds and Turner’s Dewy morning (Blunt 1979 p.121).
Among private clients, he worked extensively for Earl Stanhope at Chevening, 1924-37 including treating Pompeo Batoni’s Louisa Greville. He laid blisters, cleaned and restored Hans Eworth’s Lady Dacre and her son (National Portrait Gallery) for Lt Col. J.C. Wynne Finch in 1933. He cleaned and lined Laurent de la Hyre’s Allegory of Grammar (National Gallery) for Francis Madan in 1946/7 (Wine 2001 p.190). He treated Van Dyck’s Sir Thomas Hanmer for the Earl of Bradford, Van Dyck’s Balbi Children (National Gallery) for Lady Lucas in 1952 and Jean Baptiste Oudry’s The White Duck for the Marchioness of Cholmondeley.
Other private clients included Henry Oppenheimer, D. Borenius and Viscount Hambledon in 1924, Sir Philip Sassoon, the Earl of Leven and Mrs Leopold de Rothschild in 1925, the Duke of Westminster at Eaton etc 1926-36, the Dowager Countess of Craven 1926, F.D. Lycett Green, 1926-37, who bequeathed his pictures to York Art Gallery in 1955, J.P. Heseltine 1927, Anthony de Rothschild 1927 (Stubbs’s Five Horses, now National Trust, Ascott House), Kenneth Clark 1928 and subsequently, Duke of Roxburgh 1928, Louis Clarke 1929, 1932 (including the Brabant School, Chevalier Philip Hinckaert before the Virgin and Child, now Fitzwilliam Museum), Detmar Blow 1929-32, Earl of Shaftesbury, St Giles House 1929, C.F. Bell 1930-6, Duke of Portland, Welbeck Abbey 1930, Paul Cremetti 1930-1, Earl of Cawdor, Stackpole Court 1930-6, C.D. Rotch 1932, 1935, Major F.H. Fawkes, Farnley Hall 1934-35, including Turner’s The Dordrecht Packet, C.W. Dyson Perrins 1934-6, John Steegman 1934, Earl Spencer, Althorp 1934-7, Earl of Harewood, Harewood House 1933-5, J. Croft Murray 1936-7 and the Earl of Caledon 1936.
For dealers, Buttery worked for Arthur Tooth & Sons Ltd 1929-37, Thomas Agnew & Sons 1930-4, Leggatt Bros 1932, Durlacher Bros 1935 and Gooden & Fox (John Quilter) 1936.
Sources: Biographical information kindly supplied by Lorne Campbell; three Buttery ledgers, covering work undertaken in the period 1924-1962 (Hamilton Kerr Institute, Cambridge); Anthony Blunt (introduction), Horace Buttery 1902-1962, exh.cat., Agnew’s, London, 1963 (exhibiting various paintings mentioned above); Benedict Nicolson, ‘In Memory of Horace Buttery’, Burlington Magazine, vol.105, 1963, p.325. For abbreviations, see Resources and bibliography.
Noticed a mistake? Have some extra information? Who should be added to this directory? Please contact Jacob Simon at jsimon@npg.org.uk.
