January 2009

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If Chinese art is an unexpected sight at Compton Verney, the collection of historic British portraits – still something of a work in progress – is clearly being assembled with an eye to its historic setting. As Sir Peter points out to me, the house is only a few miles away from the site of the Battle of Edgehill, which gives a particular piquancy to such treasures as the miniature of Oliver Cromwell by Samuel Cooper (Fig. 5).

By contrast, a degree of serendipity seems to account for the final element in the house’s collection, the large display of British folk art. It is composed of two private collections, those of Andras Kalman and of Enid Marx and Margaret Lambert, the first acquired by Compton Verney en bloc to prevent it being broken up. There are other works in the house acquired for similar reasons, notably an intriguing pair of Canalettos depicting the London pleasure gardens at Vauxhall and Ranelagh, bought after they were export-stopped.

The Marx-Lambert collection ranges beyond Britain to include a diverse array of extraordinary objects that caught the women’s eyes (Fig. 4). It is perhaps a quality of visual strength that more than anything else unifies the diverse Compton Verney collections and gives the sense that they are the result of one man’s taste and enthusiasms – although Sir Peter is quick to point out that what he collects for Compton Verney is not necessarily what he would collect for himself. After stressing that the collections are owned by the Compton Verney Collection Settlement, and not him personally, Sir Peter adds, ‘I’m inquisitive, not acquisitive.’ His own collection, kept at his home near Wigan, is largely contemporary, with a particular emphasis on the work of the Boyle family. ‘I have about 10. They are difficult as they are so big – one in my bedroom is six feet by 12 feet – we had to take a window out and needed a crane to get it over the house and into the room.’

Contemporary art features prominently at Compton Verney, but as loan exhibitions, and there are no plans to establish a permanent collection – ‘a contemporary collection needs to be contemporary, so you’d have to keep on buying’.