TWICKENHAM.- Strawberry Hill House continues its acclaimed In Focus series through 2024-25 with displays of extraordinary objects and artworks that have a connection with its original owner, Horace Walpole (1717-1797). Featuring paintings by Jan Van Huysum (1682 - 1749), a bronze bust of Caligula and three mysterious daggers, each exhibition will tease out the fascinating facts and hidden histories connecting these artworks to this remarkable writer, connoisseur and collector.

Look closely- can you spot the butterfly? Two masterpieces by Jan Van Huysum
16 May – 8 September 2024

Evocatively demonstrating Jan Van Huysum’s (1682-1749) gift for creating sophisticated still life compositions depicting flowers and fruits, Strawberry Hill House is delighted to present the Dutch 18th-century master’s Flowers in a Vase with Crown Imperial and Apple Blossom at the Top and a Statue of Flora (1731-2) and Fruit and Flowers in front of a Garden Vase with an Opium Poppy and a Row of Cypresses (1731-2) on loan from a private collection and on public display for the first time in 10 years.

Art historian Andrew Graham Dixon has described the pair as “the two most brilliant and perfectly preserved paintings by the painter”, and they have remained together ever since leaving Van Huysum’s studio. It is believed that they were conceived as pendants from the outset, one showing mostly fruits, the other flowers. The pictures are in exceptional preservation and vividly showcase Van Huysum's desired freshness of colour and transparency. They were originally owned by the painter Jeanne Etienne Liotard (1702-1789).

Van Huysum’s work was greatly appreciated during his lifetime and for half a century afterwards his pictures sold for unprecedented sums and were only collected by the richest collectors in Europe, among which was Horace’s father, Sir Robert Walpole (1676-1745). Although Horace Walpole did not keep any Jan Van Huysums at Strawberry Hill himself - due to their rarity, expense, and difficulty in procurement – he did possess a painting by Jacob Van Huysum, Van Huysum’s brother, who resided at Sir Robert Walpole’s house in Chelsea, and numerous works by Jean Baptiste Monnoyer (1636-1699), a French-Flemish painter who relocated to Britain in the late 17th century, as well as by his son Antoine Monnoyer, (1670-1747) whoSe compositions were similar to Van Huysum’s but less soft and finished.

Liotard was forced to sell his pair of Van Huysums and afterwards they were bought by the Landgraf Friedrich II of Hesse-Cassel (1720-1785), only to be appropriated by Napoleon during the wars before remerging in England, in private collections. Strawberry Hill House’s in-focus exhibition will provide visitors with an immersive experience, by inviting them to delve into the intricate details, pictorial brilliance, and celebrate Walpole's profound fascination with flowers and his own garden at the villa, through Van Huysum's beautiful paintings

Rediscovered: The lost bronze of Roman Emperor Caligula
6 June – until 8 September 2024

In his 1774’s Description Walpole noted: “THE TRIBUNE…. In the glass case near the window… A small bust in bronze of Caligula, with silver eyes. This exquisite piece is one of the finest things in the collection and shows the great art of the ancients.”

The rediscovery of the renowned bronze head of Caligula in the Schroder Collection provides an opportunity to celebrate Strawberry Hill's decade-long commitment to tracking down lost treasures from Walpole’s huge collection of paintings, furniture, sculpture and curiosities. In 1842, the collection had been dispersed across the globe in what was dubbed ‘the sale of the century’ when George Waldegrave, the 7th Earl Waldegrave - who had inherited Strawberry Hill House and its contents – needed to raise the necessary funds to settle his considerable gambling debts. Despite the disappearance of Walpole's collection, the wealth of documentary sources he left behind, including drawings by John Carter (1748-1817), and two descriptions of the Villa and its contents, has provided fertile ground for a series of remarkable discoveries. One of which is the small bronze bust of Caligula, originally given to Walpole by Horace Mann (1796-1859).

It was bought in the 1842 auction by the English collector William Beckford (1760-1844) but subsequently all traces of the bust were lost. Only through Carter's drawings was its identification possible, when curator Silvia Davoli found it in the Schroder Collection.

The Strawberry Hill display aims to support a new inquiry, as experts are puzzled by its magnificent workmanship and ancient nature, with some recognizing it as an outstanding Renaissance specimen, possibly originating from either Padua or Mantua in the early 1500s.

The exhibition not only narrates the tale of this unique object between Italy and England but also endeavours to uncover the truth about its authorship, by once again bringing it to public attention.

Is this a Dagger I see before me? The collector, the actor and the mystery of the Ottoman jewelled dagger
3 October 2024 – 10 January 2025

Along with the Medici and the Valois, Horace Walpole was also fascinated by the Tudors and at Strawberry Hill he devoted an entire room to them and called it The Holbein Chamber.

This room originally contained a large number of works by or after Hans Holbein the Younger (1497/8 – 1543), as well as those objects from his collection which Walpole associated with the Tudors - the famous Cardinal Wolsey hat, the portraits of the members of the court of Henry VIII. And nearby in the Tribune, a mysterious dagger was on display.

Although Walpole claimed it be 'Henry the Eighth's Dagger', it was actually Ottoman and lavishly decorated 'with a profusion of rubies' and diamonds. A number of drawings of it, again made by John Carter, have survived.

In the 1842 auction, much of Walpole’s Tudor's memorabilia was bought by the celebrated actor-manager Charles Kean (1811-1868). Kean considered himself a ‘historian actor’ and avidly collected historical ephemera and costumes, which he used in his productions. All traces of Walpole’s dagger were lost at the end of the 19th-century, after Kean’s death, and it has never resurfaced since. However, thanks to Carter's valuable drawings, it has now been possible to trace two daggers that are very similar to Walpole's. One is at Welbeck Abbey (The Portland Collection) and was previously part of the famous Arundel collection. The second is at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna and was originally part of the Rudolf II collection at Schlöss Ambras.

The three objects share a number of formal characteristics, but questions remain as to how, where, when and for whom they were originally made. Were they perhaps diplomatic gifts? Were the three daggers originally part of a set that has since been dispersed?

The display of the Welbeck and Vienna daggers will not only offer the unique opportunity to see them together for the very first time but also to see 18th-century materials associated with the lost Walpole dagger, from Yale University's Lewis Walpole Library. A dedicated room in the House will also focus on Charles Kean, with historical paintings and objects from the Garrick Club collection in London further connecting Walpole’s interest in history and sense of theatre.