Louis Huth - Sales From His Collections

Sales From His Collections

On 20 May 1905, three months after Louis Huth’s death, a significant part of his collection of eighteenth and nineteenth century paintings was sold at Christie’s. The sale did not include any works by Whistler, although some of them had already been sold, but did include a large number by Watts, although not his portrait of Mrs Huth. Her portrait by Whistler is in the collection of the Viscount Cowdray having apparently been sold to Weetman Pearson, 1st Viscount Cowdray, in 1923 (a year before Louis’ widow died) by Edward Huth, a nephew of Louis Huth. In that regard, Louis’ will is instructive. Louis and Helen Huth had no children. Louis left £100,000 to his partners in the firm of Frederick Huth and Co, which included two nephews (one of them being Edward Huth) and one great nephew (Frederick Huth Jackson), albeit Louis' widow, Helen, took a life interest in the income from that sum; she also received £4,000 and the London house in Mayfair, as well as certain other personal effects at Possingworth and Mayfair. Louis bequeathed her a life-interest in the family portraits (those at Possingworth and at Mayfair) and in the furniture and pictures at the house in Mayfair; upon her death the family portraits were to become the property of Louis’ nephew, Edward Huth. Given her life-interest in the family portraits, Helen How must have agreed with her late husbands’ nephew Edward, the ultimate beneficiary of the family portraits, that he could sell her portrait by Whistler to Viscount Cowdray the year before Helen died. Edward would have been required also to agree to Helen’s private sale to Sir Hugh Lane of one of her portraits by George Watts, who gave it to the Dublin City Gallery in 1908.

The items from Huth's collection sold at Christie’s included watercolours by Gainsborough and Turner and paintings by Hogarth, Gainsborough, Reynolds, Stubbs, Constable, George Morland, John Crome, William Etty and James Ward, and numerous other artists of the English school, as well as paintings by Corot (3) and Fantin-Latour (3) of the French school, and paintings described as by Van Dyck and Titian. While a number of the attributions given in the sales catalogue have with the passage of time been re-assessed by art historians, so that some works given to the masters are now regarded as copies only, and not necessarily by the master’s studio, nevertheless significant prices were paid for many of the pictures, and the sale, comprising 145 lots in total, raised the significant sum then of over £50,000. An important portrait in the collection, whose attribution of authorship has stood the test of time, was lot 98, by Thomas Gainsborough RA, ‘Portrait of Mr Vestris, a Celebrated Dancer, in pale blue coat, with white vest and stock, powdered hair. Oval, 28½ in by 23 in. Exhibited at the Grosvenor Gallery, 1885’. It was sold to Asher Wertheimer for 4,550 guineas. Wertheimer subsequently proudly announced his acquisition of the painting, having it reproduced as the frontispiece to the Burlington Magazine in July 1905. The portrait, which was illustrated in the Christie’s sale catalogue, was Gainsborough’s celebrated portrait of the Italian dancer, Gaëtan Apolline Balthazar Vestris, painted in 1781 (Private Collection), as distinguished from his son Marie Jean Augustin Vestris, also a famous dancer, whose portrait, c. 1781 (Tate Britain) was also painted by Gainsborough.

Despite the richness of Louis Huth’s collection and that of his older brother Charles, which in terms of the pictures it contained arguably surpassed that of Louis, ‘the names of Charles and Louis Huth have recently been associated with trafficking in works of art’. It has been suggested that some of Charles's pictures by John Crome were copies by other hands and purchased as such, but that he and his brother Louis passed them off as originals. And while the painter W. P. Frith RA regarded Charles a generous and intelligent patron, Evan R. Firestone considered Louis to be a dealer. While it is true that Louis Huth did dispose of items from his collection during his lifetime, including several works he owned by Whistler, that factor in itself does not justify his classification as a dealer rather than a collector or connoisseur. Apart from discussion of his role in the purchase and sale of a number of works, less than ten, attributed to John Crome, insufficient examination and analysis of his buying and selling of art has been done to enable firm conclusions to be reached. Nevertheless, it seems unlikely that a man born into and inheriting considerable wealth, who continued to derive significant financial returns from his share in the bank of Huth and Co in which he was a partner until his death (albeit not actively involved in its management), would have had any need to find alternative sources of remuneration. It also seems unlikely, if not impossible, that Huth, a member of a leading banking family and partnership, would knowingly engage in sharp practice of the sort alleged regarding the paintings by John Crome - a practice that,if uncovered, would destroy his reputation and seriously damage to that of his family and the bank.