page_title: Francis Leggatt Chantrey
section_title: Bequest
hierarchical_section_title: Francis Leggatt Chantrey / Bequest
caption_attribution_description: English: "George IV," marble bust, by the English sculptor Francis Leggatt Chantrey, dated 1827. 33 inches x 22 inches x 11 inches (83.8 cm x 55.9 cm x 27.9 cm). Courtesy of the Paul Mellon Collection, Yale Center for British Art, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut.
context_page_description: Sir Francis Legatt Chantrey RA was an English sculptor. He became the leading portrait sculptor in Regency era Britain, producing busts and statues of many notable figures of the time. Chantrey's most notable works include the statues of King George IV; King George III, and George Washington. He also executed four monuments to military heroes for St Paul’s Cathedral, London. He left the Chantrey Bequest for the purchase of works of art for the nation, which was available from 1878 after the death of his widow.
context_section_description: By his will, dated 31 December 1840, Chantrey (who had no children) left his whole residuary personal estate after the decease or on the second marriage of his widow (less certain specified annuities and bequests) in trust for the president and trustees of the Royal Academy (or in the event of its dissolution to such society as might take its place), the income to be devoted to the encouragement of British painting and sculpture, by "the purchase of works of fine art of the highest merit ... that can be obtained." The funds might be allowed to accumulate for not more than five years; works by British or foreign artists, dead or living, might be acquired, so long as such works were entirely executed within Great Britain, the artists having been in residence there during the execution and completion. The prices to be paid were to be "liberal," and no sympathy for an artist or his family was to influence the selection or the purchase of works, which were to be acquired solely on the ground of intrinsic merit. No commission or orders might be given: the works must be finished before purchase. Conditions were made as to the exhibition of the works, in the confident expectation that the government or the country would provide a suitable gallery for their display; and an annual sum of £300 and £50 was to be paid to the president and the secretary of the Royal Academy respectively, for the discharge of their duties in carrying out the provisions of the will.
  Lady Chantrey died in 1875, and two years later the fund became available for the purchase of paintings and sculptures. The capital sum available amounted to £105,000 in 3% Consols (reduced to 2½% in 1903), which was producing an available annual income varying between £2,100 and £2,500 by around 1910. Initially the works acquired were shown at the Victoria and Albert Museum, but in 1898 the Royal Academy arranged with the treasury, on behalf of the government, for the transfer of the collection to the National Gallery of British Art, which had been erected by Sir Henry Tate at Millbank. It was agreed that the Tate Gallery should be its future home, but that the trustees and director of the National Gallery should have no power over what works were to be transferred there, or added to the collection at a later date. (Treasury Letter, 18054-98, 7 December 1898)
  By the end of 1905, 203 works had been bought—all but two from living artists—at a cost of nearly £68,000. Of these, 175 were oil paintings, 12 were watercolours, and 16 were sculptures. The bequest remained the main source of funding for expanding the collection of what is now Tate Britain until the 1920s, and it remains active today.
caption: King George IV by Chantrey (1827)
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