George Frideric Handel by Ellen T. Harris

Author:Ellen T. Harris
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

I have got a new madness, I am running wild after shells. This morning I have set my little collection of shells in nice order in my cabinet, and they look so beautiful, that I must by some means enlarge my stock . . .14

A few months later (April 12, 1735), she informed her mother that she hoped to be able to acquire the shell collection of a recently deceased collector, wondering if it would be sold at auction.15 And in 1736 (September 2) she told Jonathan Swift that she had that summer “undertaken a work that has given me full employment, which is making a grotto in Sir John Stanley’s garden at North End, and it is chiefly composed of shells I had from Ireland.”16

The greatest eighteenth-century collectors opened their cabinets to visitors. Sir Hans Sloane’s collection was one of the most important, consisting of books, prints, drawings, natural history, medals and coins, as well as shoes and shells. In June 1728, on the day before Anne Donnellan’s sister was married, a party of about twelve, consisting of the prospective bride and groom, family and friends, “went to see Sr Hans Sloanes Cabinet of Curiosities” and “spent 4 or 5 hours there very agreeably.”17 When Handel visited in 1740 he is said to have outraged his host, who generally offered refreshments to his guests, by placing a buttered muffin on a rare book. Handel apparently thought Sloane’s accusation was an attempt to blame his decision to give up providing tea for his guests on the “gormandizing German.”18 In 1753, Sloane bequeathed the collection to the nation in return for a payment of £20,000 to his heirs. Its more than 71,000 items formed the foundation of the British Museum in 1759.19

The creation of a great library was a time-honored goal for members of the upper classes, and any others with pretensions to social advancement. The library of Thomas Britton, the small-coal man who organized concerts in his upper room, contained not only music but a wide selection of books in various fields and “also an extraordinary collection of manuscripts in Latin and English.”20 The first auction of his books, which occurred in his lifetime, included 1,218 lots, many containing more than one book. The posthumous auction of his collection contained 1,036 lots, of which Sir Hans Sloane was one of the most significant purchasers.21 Britton, whose portrait by John Wollaston was part of Sloane’s collection given to the nation (but transferred in 1879 from the British Museum to the National Portrait Gallery), was what then was called a virtuoso, an amateur who collected with knowledge and discrimination. John Percival was delighted to report from Paris his fifteen-year-old son’s initiation to this status: “He grows very fond of Antiques, and bought a great many Glass Seals, Coppys of the French Kings Collection, which he proposes to place in a Cabinet, this is the beginning of Virtuosoship.”22

Handel’s library, to the extent that it can be reconstructed, was that of a professional musician.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.