(Corsham Court) Borenius, Tancred
A catalogue of the pictures at Corsham Court.
London, nd (preface dated 30 August 1939).
Full Description
Small 4to. xviii + 140pp, 52 photo plates. Original printed wrappers, creased at lower outer corner of front cover and bumped at foot of spine (but generally in good condition).
The first catalogue of the Methuen family’s collection of Old Master pictures at Corsham Court to be prepared by a proper art historian, the Finnish-born scholar Tancred Borenius (1885-1948). Borenius’s introduction explains the history of the collection and discusses each of the previous guide books to it, while his text itemises the pictures, with accompanying measurements and provenances. It is interesting to discover that none of the previous catalogues seem to have listed all the pictures, while some of those listed in the 1903 catalogue had been sold off in a Christie’s sale in 1920. The absence of a publisher’s imprint and of a date on the title leaf suggests that this catalogue, like those of 1891 and 1903, was issued for private circulation.