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Lot Essay
Frank Hall Standish (1799-1840) was born at Blackwell, Darlington, co. Durham, the only child of Anthony Hall (b. 1776), of Flass, Durham, and his wife Charlotte Rey. In 1812 he inherited the estate of his distant cousin Sir Frank Standish, of Duxbury Hall, Chorley, Lancashire, and he then assumed by Royal licence the name of Standish.
Standish, who was educated at St. John's College Cambridge, spent much of the early 1820s travelling in Europe, living firstly in France before settling in Seville in 1830, devoting much of his energy and wealth to forming a considerable art collection and playing an important part in the development of a taste for Spanish art in Britain and France. In Seville he was host to fellow hispanophiles such as Richard Ford (1796-1858), who wrote the celebrated Handbook for Travellers in Spain (1845) and collected paintings such as Ribalta's The Vision of Father Simon (National Gallery, London) and Zurbaran's St Serafion (Wadsworth Athenaeum) and Benjamin Disraeli (1804-81), author, conservative Member of Parliament and later Prime Minister. Standish acquired over 260 drawings and approximately 220 paintings, mostly by Spanish masters - particularly Zurbaran, Murillo and Velasquez - and commissioned architectural views from David Roberts, such as Interior of Seville Cathedral: High Altar (Downside School, Somerset). He also collected books, wrote a biography of Voltaire (1821), some poetry, collected in Poems: the Maid of Jaen, Timon and the Bride of Palencia (1838) and several travel books, including Seville and its Vicinity (1840).
Standish died unmarried at Cadiz, on his way home from Seville, on 21 December 1840, having sent most of his art collection and library to Duxbury Hall, and was buried in the Standish crypt at St Laurence's, Chorley, on 21 January 1841. In his will he bequeathed his entire collection to King Louis-Philippe of France, partly out of respect for the French nation, but also as a protest at the British government for its refusal to revive the Standish baronetcy on his behalf. A selection of his pictures was incorporated by the King in the top floors of the Louvre's north wing as the 'Musée Standish' - alongside the 'Galerie Espagnole' which was opened in 1838 - where Standish's rare collection of Murillo drawings were particularly admired.
After the 1848 revolution, King Louis-Philippe successfully claimed the collection as his private property and the paintings were sent to England and sold at Christie's on 28 and 30 May 1853. Works from that sale can be seen today in the Wallace Collection, London (Velazquez's Don Baltasar Carlos), Hampton Court, London (Zurbaran's St. Ignatius Loyola) and in the National Galleries of Dublin, Stockholm, and Washington (Morales's St Jerome, Murillo's Double Trinity, and from Zurbaran's studio, Sts Paula, Eustachia, and Jerome).
Standish was also portrayed by Sir Thomas Lawrence, when a young boy, circa 1812, in a small full-length portrait (see K. Garlick, Sir Thomas Lawrence, Oxford, 1989, no. 738).
Standish, who was educated at St. John's College Cambridge, spent much of the early 1820s travelling in Europe, living firstly in France before settling in Seville in 1830, devoting much of his energy and wealth to forming a considerable art collection and playing an important part in the development of a taste for Spanish art in Britain and France. In Seville he was host to fellow hispanophiles such as Richard Ford (1796-1858), who wrote the celebrated Handbook for Travellers in Spain (1845) and collected paintings such as Ribalta's The Vision of Father Simon (National Gallery, London) and Zurbaran's St Serafion (Wadsworth Athenaeum) and Benjamin Disraeli (1804-81), author, conservative Member of Parliament and later Prime Minister. Standish acquired over 260 drawings and approximately 220 paintings, mostly by Spanish masters - particularly Zurbaran, Murillo and Velasquez - and commissioned architectural views from David Roberts, such as Interior of Seville Cathedral: High Altar (Downside School, Somerset). He also collected books, wrote a biography of Voltaire (1821), some poetry, collected in Poems: the Maid of Jaen, Timon and the Bride of Palencia (1838) and several travel books, including Seville and its Vicinity (1840).
Standish died unmarried at Cadiz, on his way home from Seville, on 21 December 1840, having sent most of his art collection and library to Duxbury Hall, and was buried in the Standish crypt at St Laurence's, Chorley, on 21 January 1841. In his will he bequeathed his entire collection to King Louis-Philippe of France, partly out of respect for the French nation, but also as a protest at the British government for its refusal to revive the Standish baronetcy on his behalf. A selection of his pictures was incorporated by the King in the top floors of the Louvre's north wing as the 'Musée Standish' - alongside the 'Galerie Espagnole' which was opened in 1838 - where Standish's rare collection of Murillo drawings were particularly admired.
After the 1848 revolution, King Louis-Philippe successfully claimed the collection as his private property and the paintings were sent to England and sold at Christie's on 28 and 30 May 1853. Works from that sale can be seen today in the Wallace Collection, London (Velazquez's Don Baltasar Carlos), Hampton Court, London (Zurbaran's St. Ignatius Loyola) and in the National Galleries of Dublin, Stockholm, and Washington (Morales's St Jerome, Murillo's Double Trinity, and from Zurbaran's studio, Sts Paula, Eustachia, and Jerome).
Standish was also portrayed by Sir Thomas Lawrence, when a young boy, circa 1812, in a small full-length portrait (see K. Garlick, Sir Thomas Lawrence, Oxford, 1989, no. 738).