page_title: Orleans Collection
section_title: Collection in Paris
hierarchical_section_title: Orleans Collection / Collection in Paris
context_page_description: The Orleans Collection was a very important collection of over 500 paintings formed by Philippe d'Orléans, Duke of Orléans, mostly acquired between about 1700 and his death in 1723. Apart from the great royal-become-national collections of Europe it is arguably the greatest private collection of Western art, especially Italian, ever assembled, and probably the most famous, helped by the fact that most of the collection has been accessible to the public since it was formed, whether in Paris, or subsequently in London, Edinburgh and elsewhere.
  The core of the collection was formed by 123 paintings from the collection of Queen Christina of Sweden, which itself had a core assembled from the war booty of the sacks by Swedish troops of Munich in 1632 and Prague in 1648 during the Thirty Years War. After the French Revolution the collection was sold by Louis Philippe d'Orléans, Philippe Égalité, and most of it acquired by an aristocratic English consortium led by Francis Egerton, 3rd Duke of Bridgewater. Much of the collection has been dispersed, but significant groups remain intact, having passed by inheritance.
context_section_description: The Orleans collection was housed in the magnificent setting of the Palais-Royal, the Paris seat of the Dukes of Orléans.  Only 15 paintings in the printed catalogue of 1727 had been inherited by Philippe II from his father, Philippe de France, Duke of Orléans, Monsieur (1640–1701); the "collection" as catalogued was by no means all the art owned by the Dukes, but recorded only that part kept together in the Palais-Royal for public viewing.  He also inherited small but high quality collections from Henrietta Anne Stuart, his father's first wife, in 1701 and his father's lover, the Chevalier de Lorraine in 1702.
  According to Reitlinger, his most active phase of collecting began in about 1715, the year he became Regent on the death of his uncle Louis XIV, after which he no doubt acquired an extra edge in negotiations.  He also began to be presented with many paintings, most notably the three of Titian's poesies, now in Boston and shared by Edinburgh and London, which were given by Philip V of Spain to the French ambassador, the Duc de Gramont, who in turn presented them to the Regent.
  Christina's collection only joined Philippe's shortly before the end of his life and most of the other works were bought in France, like the Sebastiano del Piombo Raising of Lazarus, with some from the Netherlands or Italy, like the Nicolas Poussin set of the Seven Sacraments, bought from a Dutch collection by Cardinal Dubois in 1716.  Other sources included the heirs of Cardinals Richelieu and Mazarin, and Cardinal Dubois, with an especially important group from Colbert's heir the Marquis de Seignelay, and others from the Dukes of Noailles, Gramont, Vendôme and other French collectors.
  The paintings were housed in two suites of large rooms running side-by-side down the west or library wing of the palace, with the smaller Dutch and Flemish works in smaller rooms.  The gallery suites of rooms still retained much of their original furniture, porcelain and wall-decorations from their use by Phillippe's father as grand reception rooms and according to a visitor in 1765 it was "impossible to imagine anything more richly furnished or decorated with more art and taste".  Rearrangements had been made to accommodate the paintings; connoisseurs particularly praised the Galerie à la Lanterne, with its even, sunless top light diffused from the cupola overhead. For most of the 18th century it was easy to visit the collection, and very many people did so, helped by the printed catalogue of 1727, republished in 1737, Description des Tableaux du Palais Royal.  This contained 495 paintings, though some continued to be added, and a few disposed of.
  Paintings were hung, not by 'schools' or by subject but in order to maximise their effects in juxtaposition, in the 'mixed school' manner espoused by Pierre Crozat for his grand private collection in his Parisian hôtel.  The mixture on a wall of erotic and religious subjects was disapproved of by some visitors.  The collection was most notable for Italian paintings of the High and Late Renaissance, especially Venetian works.  The collection included no fewer than five of the poesies painted for Philip II of Spain, of which two are now shared between Edinburgh and London, two always in London (Wallace Collection and National Gallery), and one in Boston. A series of four mythological allegories by Veronese are now divided between the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, and the Frick Collection (with two, one illustrated above) and Metropolitan Museum in New York.  Another Veronese series, the four Allegories of Love now in the National Gallery, hung as overdoors in the central salon, which also held the larger Veronese series, three of the Titian poesies and Correggios.
  The collection included (on the contemporary attributions) 28 Titians, most now regarded as workshop pieces but including several of his finest works, 12 Raphaels, 16 Guido Renis, 16 Veroneses, 12 Tintorettos, 25 paintings by Annibale Carracci and 7 by Lodovico Caracci, 3 major Correggios plus ten no longer accepted as by him, and 3 Caravaggios.  Attribut
caption: The Raising of Lazarus by Sebastiano del Piombo, extracted by Phillippe from Narbonne Cathedral and later "NG1", the first entry in the National Gallery catalogue
exif: {}