Lord Arundel's Collections

James Basire after Peter Paul Rubens
Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel
1763
engraving
(frontispiece to Marmora Oxoniensia)
British Museum

Anonymous Copyist after Wenceslaus Hollar
Plan of Arundel House in the Strand ca. 1675 (demolished soon after)
printed 1808
etching
Yale Center for British Art

In the plan above, the complex of Arundel House is the central dark rectangle with a tail, its gardens maked out by paler rectangles marching down to the Thames.  In those gardens during the 1620s and 1630s – and in an adjoining indoor gallery – was displayed the first collection of ancient Greek and Roman sculpture to exist in England.  This group of works – both statues and carved inscriptions – came to be known as the Arundel Marbles, assembled by the Stuart courtier Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel.  

Wenceslaus Hollar after Adam Alexius Bierling
Arundel House from within the Courtyard, facing North
1646
etching
British Museum

Wenceslaus Hollar after Adam Alexius Bierling
Arundel House from within the Courtyard, facing South
1646
etching
British Museum

Wenceslaus Hollar
London from the top of Arundel House
1643
etching
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Wenceslaus Hollar
London from Milford Stairs below Arundel House
ca. 1643-44
etching
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

"Arundel had expressed the wish that his collection be kept together permanently, but this was not to be.  A series of family disputes ended with Henry Howard, Arundel's grandson, taking Arundel House and its contents.  . . .  The marbles seem to have survived the Civil War, but suffered from vandalism.  Of the two hundred and fifty inscriptions collected by Arundel one hundred and fourteen had already disappeared when in 1667 Henry was persuaded by John Evelyn to give the remainder to the University of Oxford.  The Vice-Chancellor's accounts for 1667-68 include entries for the 'Water carriage of the Arundell Marbles' and 'for cleansing the Marbles.'  The gift was commemorated with an inscription and the publication in 1676 of Humphrey Prideaux's Marmora Arundelliana [below]."  

– Michael Vickers, The Arundel and Pomfret Marbles in Oxford (2006)

Humphrey Prideaux
Marmora Oxoniensia
1676
title page to printed book
(marking the gift of the Arundel Marbles)
Staatsbibliothek Bamberg

Anonymous British Printmaker
Arrival of the Pomfret (Arundel) Marbles at Oxford in 1755
printed 1757
engraving
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

More Arundel Marbles were donated to the University in 1755.  These came from Arundel descendants with the family name Pomfret.  The new arrivals were commemorated in a fanciful engraved landscape in the Oxford Almanack. 

Roman Empire
Greek doctor Claudius Agathemerus and his wife Myrtale
AD 90-110
marble funerary relief
(formerly in the Arundel Collection)
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Humphrey Prideaux
Marmora Oxoniensia
1676
printed book
(funerary relief from the Arundel Collection)
Staatsbibliothek Bamberg

Roman Empire
The Oxford Bust 
(identified as Sappho or Faustina the Younger)
1st-2nd century AD
marble
(non-matching head and torso assembled ca. 1600)
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Wenceslaus Hollar
The Oxford Bust
1645
etching
(formerly in the Arundel Collection)
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Hollar etched the Oxford Bust during its time at Arundel House.  Two centuries later Frederick Sandys painted Gentle Spring after his encounter with the Oxford Bust in its museum setting.  

Frederick Sandys
Gentle Spring
1865
oil on canvas
(figure based on the Oxford Bust)
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Ancient Hellenistic Culture
Torso of a Man
(called the Arundel Homerus)
3rd-1st century BC
marble
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Peter Paul Rubens
Homerus
cs. 1603
drawing
Gemäldegalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Rubens studied and drew the Homerus fragment in Rome a decade before Arundel arrived in the city and acquired the piece.  Twenty years after making the drawing Rubens built the antique figure into one of his monumental Medici Cycle canvases.  In the sketch below, Homerus has assumed the shape of Chronos in the upper left background, arms distinctively folded over lighter robe.  

Peter Paul Rubens
Council of the Gods
1622
oil on canvas
(sketch for Medici Cycle painting in the Louvre)
Alte Pinakothek, Munich

William Westall
Sculpture Gallery in the Examination Schools, Oxford
1813
ink and watercolor on paper
(the Arundel Marbles on display, scale exaggerated)
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford