: "The Devonshire Inheritance: Five Centuries of Collecting at
Chatsworth" offers viewers a vivid bouquet of more than 200
exquisite works of English and Continental art, ranging from
Renaissance paintings and drawings to decorative silver,
porcelain and jewelry. The exhibition, on view at the Bard
Graduate Center for Studies in the Decorative Arts through June
30, is on a six-city tour organized by Art Services
International.
This highly coveted exhibition offers art enthusiasts and
collectors in the United States an opportunity to see some of
Europe's greatest treasures in a year when the strong British
pound and euro make traveling abroad an expensive proposition.
On everyone's "top five" list of great English estates,
Chatsworth has been home to the Cavendish family and the
hereditary dukes of Devonshire since the original Elizabethan
house on the site was purchased by Sir William Cavendish in 1549.
In the reality of modern times, keeping together an enormous
English country house full of fantastically valuable objects is
hard work. Crushing taxes, upkeep expenses and insurance fees
have taken their toll, but the current duke and duchess and their
family have attacked the job with much creativity. Since they
began their residence at Chatsworth in 1949, 17 million people
have seen the house and its spectacular collections.
As amply demonstrated by the exhibits on display at Bard, a fair
number of the dukes of Devonshire were keen collectors. While
they may have had more disposable income than today's average
collector, they certainly had the same passion and inspiration in
pursuing yet another find for their home. When great collections
are put on display, people often remark, "Well, they bought that
stuff when the getting was good," which for many objects in "The
Devonshire Inheritance" was during the Seventeenth and Eighteenth
Centuries.
