Treasures from Chatsworth, Episode 8: The Changing Face of Portraiture

[Music] [Music] the Georgina portrait by gainsborough is one of the most iconic things at Chatsworth Georgina was famed for her love of extreme high fashion complete with enormous feathered headdresses when she died she left person with significant debt a lot of it from her love of gambling and also fashion the world's greatest collectors are not only defined by great wealth Sotheby's takes you inside Chatsworth House the ancestral home of the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire discover the passion that has driven 16 generations of the cavendish family to create one of the world's most extraordinary art collection [Music] georgina was very much a superstar she was a fashion icon essentially the wife of the fifth Duke of Devonshire she had the most wonderful parties and was written about in the burgeoning newspapers of the time Georgina was a Spencer and there are parallels drawn between her and Diana Princess of Wales was also a Spencer she was an extraordinary person her popularity her involvement with politics which was very unusual for women in visit the whole sexual things are definitely part of her earlier she was very voluptuous she had bad fall to the terrible gambler she had a interesting marriage set up to say the least all of those things conspired to make her a remarkable person it's no surprise that other people wanted portraits offer in the same way that collectors might have wanted to have wore holes of Jackie Kennedy the painting has had a long and very eventful history it's the portrait that was originally a full-length it was owned by a school teacher called mr. McGinnis and she cut in half to fit it above her fireplace as you do with a Gainsborough it didn't become famous until many years later it was sold in the late 19th century for 10,000 pounds which was their most valuable worthwhile ever sold at auction it was bought by Thomas Agnew the dealer and within 20 days it was stolen by a notorious international criminal Adam worth Adam worst left with a painting that he can't sell because too famous so we then had to hide it it wasn't till many years later he actually confessed to Pinkerton Detective Agency that me got it and it was returned to the family and complete the circle of this extraordinary story it was bought by the Chatsworth House Trust at auction at Sotheby's in the summer of nineteen ninety-four and filled the paintings here I think it's one of them most interesting because of its history of its definite that but really more than that because of georgina the most interesting thing about the Cavendish is that throughout history they have been so extraordinarily perceptive about working with the greatest artists or artists on to their particular time painless British portrait painters from gainsborough Reynolds and others all of those great portraits were contemporary in their own time and even if you look at some of the portraits that have been commissioned by the cavendish family more recently one thinks of the wonderful portrait by michael craig martin of lady bowing to Laura it's an extraordinarily powerful image the michael craig martin portrait of Lady Burlington is another fascinating piece my parents asked us to consider a commission that portrait when we were first married I chose Michael because he was an artist that I loved I have always enjoyed his work and I really admire his practice well it's a drawing that's put through a computer program where the face is broken into sections and each one of these changes color through a sequence of 28 different colors it's on a completely random repetition so you'll never ever even if you sit in front of it for 50 years without blinking you'll never see the same color combinations twice it's an equivalence for living these constant changes and of course the psychology of color means that sometimes the person who's in the portrait looks angry and sometimes they look calm and sometimes they look beautiful and sometimes they look good test and that's human nature is never I like the idea of people being able to place that portrait in the history of time if you made it in five years time you probably wouldn't use that technology 15 years ago you wouldn't have the technology so is completely of this moment when I first heard about it I was very unsure that it would represent her or look like her but then it was as sort of another layer of portraiture on top of all the lots lots lots of oil paintings of different styles and then this took his help on our holes dead father I was completely stunned to think that it would come here to be with the portraits of gainsborough and you seen Freud but I thought it was so adventuresome to agree to such an extremely contemporary thing to place amongst these traditional thing it's another stage in the long history of portraiture Chatsworth that's a wonderful way to collect because you're commemorating a person who you are fond of within your family to be a part of a long line of similar records you

Channel: Sotheby's

Views: 46,041

Keywords: chatsworthhouse, treasuresfromchatsworth, sothebys, Gainsborough, the duchess

Id: d-OY2K7a7hw

Length: 6min 43sec (403 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 21 2016