National treasure: the Titian appeal

THE campaign to save two of Titian's greatest works for the nation is gathering pace as newly discovered evidence shows the paintings ended up here thanks to German bombs, missing frames and outrageous good fortune

EARLY in the morning of July 23, 1945, two vans "of the large furniture pantechnicon type" set out on the two-hour journey from Edinburgh to Mertoun House, St Boswells, in the Scottish Borders. They carried two men: one from the National Gallery of Scotland, the other from Aitken Dott, the Edinburgh framemakers. Stanley Cursiter, the director of the National Gallery of Scotland, followed them later that morning.

The little convoy was to make history. When the two vans returned to the city later that day, they carried a precious cargo to be loaned to the gallery: 29 Old Master paintings belonging to the fifth Earl of Ellesmere (he became the sixth Duke of Sutherland in 1963). Among them were two paintings by Titian: Diana and Actaeon and Diana and Callisto.

The names appear at the very top of a typewritten page of artworks, listed in order of importance, which was signed by Cursiter that day. Astonishingly, we now know the Titians might never have made it to the gallery on the Mound, not because the Earl was reluctant to lend them, but because he thought the gallery might not be interested. "I'm afraid the two large Titians would have to be ruled out as they have no frames," Galen Thompson, the Earl's curator and librarian, had written to Cursiter two months earlier. "Or could that be got over at the present time?"

The collection, with a bit of minor tweaking, has remained on Edinburgh walls for 63 years. It is said to have turned the gallery into a world-class destination. The seventh Duke of Sutherland, who inherited the title and the paintings in 2000, is now proposing to sell the Titians to the nation for a cool £100m pounds. In the wake of the announcement that the National Gallery of Scotland and the National Gallery in London would work together to try to purchase the paintings, there has been an understandable furore about whether it represents a good deal.

But little is on record about how works from the greatest private art collection in the world first came to hang on Scottish public walls. Scotland on Sunday has had exclusive access to the unpublished correspondence between the gallery and the Bridgewater Collection, to which the Titians belong, including letters from the Earl himself.

They reveal just how much happenstance was involved. Gallery staff have recently uncovered that Thompson had been in discussion with the National Gallery in London just a few months before, in November 1944, and its director, Kenneth Clark, had arranged space in the Welsh slate mine where the gallery's collection was secretly stored during the war years. There is no evidence they ever arrived.

The correspondence is polite yet relatively informal. The picture that emerges is of a country trying to get back on its feet. For Cursiter, the summer of 1945 was about the return to business. During the war he had run the drawing office of the Ordnance Survey in Southampton. His assistant, looking after things in Edinburgh, had suffered a nervous breakdown. By July, Cursiter was ready to rehang the collection. It had been dispersed to six Scottish country houses, many of which had been unsuitable. By the end of the war the collection was held in just two.

The Earl, for all the insulation of his inherited wealth, had a much more traumatic transition to make. He had spent almost five years as a prisoner-of-war. A lieutenant in the Lothians and Border Horse and a member of the British Expeditionary Force, he was captured at St-Valéry-en-Caux in Normandy in June 1940.

On his release he had to rebuild his life. His father had died in August 1944 and there were estate duties to be settled. The family's splendid London home, Bridgewater House, overlooking Green Park, had been bombed. Its outstanding collection of Old Masters, which also included Poussin's famous Seven Sacraments series and a magnificent Rembrandt self-portrait, had been open to the public since 1806. Now it had suffered losses and fire damage. By May 1945 it had been moved to Mertoun, the house in the Borders.

"The situation is this," Thompson wrote on May 19, 1945. "Whatever may happen to Bridgewater House in the future there can be no question of sending the pictures back there for at least five or maybe ten years. Meanwhile, it seems that the pictures must remain at Mertoun where, as I think I told you before, the conditions are not really satisfactory… especially as regards insurance and general safety. If he could disperse a few of the most valuable pictures it would be of great relief to Ellesmere if you could take a few."

What Cursiter actually felt is unclear. He may have wished to avoid appearing greedy. He expresses interest, but to modern eyes his response is cool. "Here is our problem," he replied. "We now have nearly three times as many pictures as we can show in the gallery." He asks for a list.

Within a fortnight the temperature had warmed considerably. For Cursiter, "it would be an amazing opportunity for the Scottish National Galleries". For Ellesmere, the offer dealt with the problems of security and insurance, but his curator insisted the deal was not "one-sided". "Lord Ellesmere would naturally like people to have an opportunity of seeing the best pictures in the collection and I have put them first," Thompson wrote on May 30. "I feel sure he would be willing – and glad – for you to keep them for a longish time, if you were able to do so."

In June a list is exchanged with the pictures ranked by importance. The gallery chose to take the works in the top two ranks. Fascinatingly, the seven Poussins, now understood as real treasures, are in the second rank.

There is much focus on the practicalities. Nothing could move during the Edinburgh trades fortnight. Cursiter also recommended that the pictures in the collection be glazed. "We are too close to the railway station for the atmosphere to be as sylvan as we would like, and it keeps the public from poking an inquisitive finger."

An extraordinary set of circumstances and chance had brought the collection to this gallery. The Titians were painted for Philip of Spain between 1556 and 1559, and had passed to France as a gift. They formed part of the legendary art collection of the Duc d'Orléans, but the French Revolution prompted their sale in 1792. The Duke, politically ambitious and in debt, sold his pictures through some Belgian bankers and changed his name to Philippe-Egalité. He met the guillotine the following year.

A selection of the artworks were bought from an English banker in 1798 by a three-man consortium led by the third Duke of Bridgewater, known as 'the Canal Duke', who had made a vast fortune. It included his nephew, the now notorious first Duke of Sutherland. The consortium sold, but Bridgewater kept the best for himself.

The paintings passed down through a complex pattern of inheritance, but it was a German bomb that brought them to Scotland.

For many years it was assumed that the Bridgewater Collection was evacuated from London in 1939, but that was not the case. A bomb fell on Bridgewater House just after midnight on May 11, 1941. Three works by Annibale Carracci and a vast painting by Guercino were destroyed by fire. How the paintings were stored until 1944 is not known. What happened between the approach to the London gallery in November 1944 and the paintings appearing in Scotland in May 1945 is a mystery. It was the change of heart that was to ensure the pictures found themselves in Scotland. We can imagine there would have been great personal and financial upheaval.

One obituary on his death in 2000 described the returning Earl as "turning his back on the metropolitan lifestyle".

A shy son of "dominant parents", he may have been affected by his lengthy incarceration. Mertoun, with its secluded position and access to the River Tweed, may have offered the best solution. Bridgewater House was eventually sold. Keeping his most precious possessions safe but near at hand made sense. These days, the numbers bandied around for those possessions are awesome. The market value for the Titians alone may be £300m.

By the end of this year, we will know how much the galleries' own campaign has cleared. Whether the paintings will stay or whether the pantechnicons will once more draw up to the Mound remains to be seen. r

• To find out more or donate to the Titian appeal, visit www.nationalgalleries.org, or telephone [phone]

The bridgewater loan

THE Bridgewater Collection is among the most important collections of Old Master paintings in private hands anywhere in the world. Works from it have been on public view in Britain since the early 19th century and its importance to the UK's heritage has long been recognised.

The Bridgewater Loan has been on continuous public view in the National Galleries of Scotland since 1945 and consists of 28 paintings and one drawing by artists such as Raphael, Titian, Poussin and Rembrandt.

The collection was originally formed by Francis Egerton, the third and last Duke of Bridgewater. The core of the collection was acquired following the dispersal of the renowned Orléans Collection after the French Revolution in 1792. The Duke had no children and on his death his estate passed to descendants of his sister Louisa Egerton, who had married the father of the 1st Duke of Sutherland.

From www.nationalgalleries.org