Unmasking an Enigma: Who Was Lady Wallace and What Did She Achieve?

Suzanne Elizabeth Higgott

doi:10.16995/ntn.3006

Abstract

Lady Wallace had a remarkable life but she has remained a tantalizingly enigmatic figure, not least because we have nothing written in her own hand. She was born in Paris to unmarried parents, a factotum and a linen maid, in 1819. She lived in England from 1872 until her death in 1897, but had a reputation here for speaking only French. Yet she bequeathed to the British nation an art collection described by Lord Rosebery in 1900 as ‘the greatest gift, I believe, that has ever been made by an individual to our country’: the Wallace Collection. Assessing her motivation in making the bequest is not straightforward. While it has been generally assumed that she was simply fulfilling her late husband Sir Richard’s wishes, information circulating at the time and published by the Wallace Collection for many years afterwards stated that she made the bequest at the suggestion of the Wallaces’ private secretary and her residuary legatee, Sir John Murray Scott. Another dichotomy concerns her personality and taste: was she intellectually unremarkable and lacking in discernment, as Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild judged her, or ‘a very refined, shy and excellent lady’, as described by Lord Esher? This article will assess Lady Wallace and her achievements within the context of her time, before considering her afterlife at the Wallace Collection and the role of her bequest in influencing later women patrons of the arts.

Highlights

During the formal opening of the Wallace Collection at Hertford House in central London on 22 June 1900, Lord Rosebery, chairman of trustees, described the collection as ‘the greatest gift, I believe, that has ever been made by an individual to our country’.1 was the gift itself exceptional, but the ‘individual’ who gave it was remarkable
For the Wallace Collection was bequeathed to the British nation by Lady Wallace, the widow of Sir Richard Wallace, an Englishman and the likely illegitimate son of Richard Seymour-Conway, 4th Marquess of Hertford
Lady Wallace was a Frenchwoman of humble birth. She had married Richard Wallace in Paris, their home city, in February 1871, when their own illegitimate son was thirty years old, and six months after Wallace had unexpectedly inherited from Lord Hertford great wealth and a fabulous art collection

Summary

Suzanne Higgott

During the formal opening of the Wallace Collection at Hertford House in central London on 22 June 1900, Lord Rosebery, chairman of trustees, described the collection as ‘the greatest gift, I believe, that has ever been made by an individual to our country’.1 was the gift itself exceptional, but the ‘individual’ who gave it was remarkable. Lady Wallace was a Frenchwoman of humble birth She had married Richard Wallace in Paris, their home city, in February 1871, when their own illegitimate son was thirty years old, and six months after Wallace had unexpectedly inherited from Lord Hertford great wealth and a fabulous art collection. The astounding collection that Lady Wallace bequeathed to the British nation on her death had been formed by the first four marquesses of Hertford and Sir Richard Wallace between the mid-eighteenth and the late nineteenth centuries. Lady Wallace’s bequest to the nation comprised the works of art ‘on the ground and first floors and in the galleries at Hertford House’.3 It excluded the many works of art in the Wallaces’ properties in Paris and Ireland, which 3 English transcription of Lady Wallace’s will in the Wallace Collection Archives (WCA), London, HWF/LW/10. Who was Lady Wallace and what were the circumstances that led her to leave the Wallace Collection to the nation? More than a hundred years after she made her bequest, why has she remained a relatively blank page, shrouded in negativity? In the light of her extraordinary magnanimity, why has history consigned her to its shadows? This article will attempt to unmask the enigma, answer these questions, and assess the wider legacy of Lady Wallace’s bequest.[4]

From Mlle Castelnau to Mrs Wallace

Becoming Lady Wallace

Widowhood and stewardship