Snow white and the fifty deer

Further confessions of an art writer.

Maybe this show would be the "once in a lifetime," chance claimed by the press release--not only unique but thrilling. The bulk of Sir Robert Walpole's famous collection of masterpieces was sold in 1799 to Catherine the Great Empress of Russia. His gambling grandson needed the dough. So down they came from the walls of  Houghton Hall, the Walpole country house in Norfolk and off to St. Petersburg they went. It sometimes seems that English art lovers have been moaning about the loss to the nation ever since.
    His career in public life gave Sir Robert, Britain's first prime minister, the opportunity to become hugely rich and he took it. A trophy art collection was amassed, and his country house rebuilt to do justice to his wealth and position. He hired William Kent design the interior who was instructed to create a suitably opulent setting for  the pictures. Kent let it rip. Houghton is said to be his greatest architectural achievement. He designed everything from the fireplaces and picture frames to the benches and chairs. Amazingly, a lot of the original furniture along with dishes, mirrors; tapestries, embroidered bed hangings and velvet upholstery not only survives but is in fine condition. Now here comes the once in a lifetime hook:
    From May 17 until 29 September the paintings, anyway 60 of them, are back home at Houghton for the first time since they left. The collection has been reunited with the rooms created to house it. This seemed too good to pass up. So I signed on for the press visit. It was up and back in a day and although I'd never been to Houghton I knew that getting from London to the north coast of Norfolk is a schlep.

I was at King's Cross at 9:30 sharp. King's Lynn, the end of the line was a two hour trip in a train that shook as if it had the DTs. We were met by a coach that smelled like sugar coated blueberry muffins. (Some brainchild of an air freshener whizz.) About forty minutes later the white iron gates of the park swung open and we were dropped at the stable block to have tea and be welcomed.. David Cholmondely, the seventh Marquess, and descendant of Sir Robert, is the current owner of Houghton and he made a charming speech. Mikhail Pietrovsky, Director of the Hermitage spoke warmly of the cooperation between everyone involved not least of all the bureaucrats. Then it was on to the house. It's as impressive as Walpole wanted it to be. But maybe it was all the stone and marble that made it feel as chilly to the heart as to the skin. And it was a gray, windy and very cold day for May. Then, too, I'd been so worried about oversleeping and missing the train that I barely slept. Anyway it was the pictures I'd come to see so off I went.
    I saw beautiful velvets and delightful embroideries and lots of carved and gilded mirrors. But where were the masterpieces? The walls were hung in tiers with paintings-- but surely these couldn't be what the fuss was all about? There were yards of works by second and third rate Italians with the odd Poussin mixed in.
 
   I stood at one of the tall windows in the Stone Hall. I looked out onto the grass that stretched as far as I could see The trees had only just come into leaf; dainty tender and newborn green. Is there a word like misanthrope to use when it is art not one's fellows that a person doesn't fancy? If so, I was its embodiment. It isn't a lovely feeling......Feeling disappointed with the art made me feel somehow disappointed with myself and plenty else. And then it happened:
    First ten then twenty then fifty or more snowy white deer appeared from the woodland to my right. In ones and twos they ran across the landscape. They were going as fast as they could yet it seemed ages--an eternity-- before they disappeared. This was better than a fairy tale; these  improbable beauties were real..
   (The image here,the best I can find, was probably taken in late summer and shows stags only and them closer up. But still you get the idea.. I hope. I felt grateful to whom or whatever caused the deer to bolt from the woods.)
  .
    Eventually I found my way to the Saloon and Walpole's Rembrandt (it looked better in reproduction), a dusty Hals, a large amusing kitchen scene by Teniers and then a study for his portrait of Pope Innocent X by Velasquez. (Catherine the Great missed this one. It ended up at the National Gallery in Washington.) For those so inclined to posthumous regrets, this painting is a loss to the British nation worth moaning about.

  Call me jaded.  In the last month I've seen a lot of great paintings. I spent a day and a half in the Rijksmuseum; hours in Munich's Alte Pinoketeka.Maybe that's why this big reunion of Sir Robert's 60 paintings and the setting created to show them off, didn't wow. Or maybe not. Maybe over all, the collection isn't the knock out it seemed to be in the eighteenth century when his privileged visitors saw the pictures first at Downing Street and then in his stately, gilded country house.
   "Never mind the Rembrandt," I reported when twelve hours after I'd left that morning, I walked into my so very, very much more humble house. "Let me tell you about the white deer."