American taste and money; English art treasures

The British Forbes family originally made its money from trading between North America and China in the C19th. The first Forbes to migrate, Bertie Forbes (1880-1954), left Scotland for the USA in 1904. He founded Forbes magazine, a business and finance magazine, in 1916 and became an American citizen the very next year. His son, Malcolm Forbes (1919-90) later took over the struggling publishing business, turning it into a success. Despite Malcolm’s lavish parties, he was not successful when he stood for political elections in New Jersey in 1957. But he did have SOME good luck - at the death of his brother in 1964, Malcolm acquired sole control of the company.

In the meantime, examine Old Battersea House (late C17th) which is one of the oldest homes in that part of London. I would like to know who built the house (Sir Christ­opher Wren has been mentioned more than once)? Who later bought the house? And what it was used for? Christie’s certainly believed its handsome baroque proportions both inside and out, with grounds sloping down to the Thames, would support the Wren theory. One thing is for sure: much of the land belonging to the handsome manor house was sold in the 1920s after being vacated by St John's College, an Anglican college for priests.

 Old Battersea House
built in the late 17th century

The leaders of the fight to save Old Battersea House from demolition were Col Charles Stirling and his wife Wilhemina, the sister of the wonderful artist Evelyn De Morgan. They lived in the house, leased from local government, starting in 1931 until Wilhemina’s death in 1965. The Stirlings' art collection, ceramics and furniture were bequeathed to the De Morgan Foundation and are on view at the nearby West Hill Library.

This house over the river from Chelsea was to be demolished when the estate was being developed, and only a public outcry and an Act of Parliament saved the estate from being razed to the ground. The manor house was given English Heritage listing in 1954. Sadly Old Battersea House lay empty and neg­lected for years, a mere shell until the above mentioned Malcolm Forbes saw it and its stunning proportions in the early 1970s. Arch­itects Vernon Gibb­erd and Malcolm’s son Christopher Forbes restored and modernised the house, to serve as the Forbes family home whenever they were in London. It included 10 bedrooms, a baroque hallway and panelled drawing rooms.

From my perspective, Old Battersea House became even more significant because it housed one of the world's most important collections of C19th British art. According to Christie’s, the drawing room was to die for. It had the stars of the art collection, including works by revered Pre-Raphaelite masters Millais, Holman-Hunt, Rossetti and Hughes. There was also a stunning Orientalist work by John Frederick Lewis, and several important Scottish pictures. Through the door into the library a visitor could see Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones' St George and the Dragon. And oh what famous visitors the Forbes invited!

 The drawing room

  

Wilhelmina Stirling would have been pleased that the house became home to a new collection of wonderful pictures painted by artists that she once knew well. Three of the main rooms on the ground floor were devoted to works from the De Morgan Foundation collection, including paint­ings by her maternal uncle, John Roddam Spencer Stanhope (l829-l908). 

The State Bedroom had a display of art in tribute to Queen Victoria, which was lovely, but I wonder why American millionaires had a special devotion to a long dead British queen. Certainly Malcolm’s three sons did not. Thus many of the Victorian works were sold off in an auction spanning two days and three sessions at Christie's London in February 2003. Then there was another art sale at the Lyon and Turnbull auction-rooms in Edinburgh in December 2011.

Let me mention a few of the paintings put onto the market. William Holman Hunt was represented in this collection by his first life-sized figure (est £1.2-1.8 million). Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones’ canvas depicted the legend of St George and the Dragon (est £1.2-1.8 million). Sir Edwin Henry Landseer, one of Queen Victoria's favourite artists, had a work celebrating an elegant Victorian sporting aristocrat (est: £800,000-1.2 million). Two stun­ning Sir John Everett Millais works were included (Trust Me £800,000-1.2 million and For the Squire £800,000- 1.2 million). The Portrait of Miss Amy Brandon Thomas, by Whistler, was not even given an estimate.

The leading sculpture in this sale was Frederic, Lord Leighton's best known composition, Athlete struggling with a Python (est £600,000-800,000).

How extraordinary that the collection, which had been assembled by Malcolm Forbes and his son Christopher so carefully since 1970, has been broken up and sold off only 40 years later. Now the House itself is on the market.

The state bedroom

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Amicia de Moubray has written a book called Twentieth Century Castles in Britain, published by Frances Lincoln in 2013. Often the money to build or rebuild substantial architecture came from American women who married British men and emigrated, or from American families who stayed in the USA but wanted a European bolt hole for themselves.

Examples she gave included
a] William Waldorf Aster who spent truckloads of money on Hever Castle and its gardens in Kent;
b] William Randolf Hearst spent even more money on St Donat's Castle in Wales
c] Lord Curzon, Viceroy of India, who married an American millionairess and later used her money to resuscitate the very dead Bodiam Castle in East Sussex.
d] Olive Paget, daughter of 1st Baron Queenborough and his American millionaire wife, used the American inheritance to buy the rather decrepit Leeds Castle in Kent. Olive divorced her first husband but retained possession of the castle. Then she married Sir Adrian William Maxwell Baillie, 6th Baronet, and continued to pour money into reviving beautiful Leeds Castle.