Country House Collections

Their lives and afterlives

Terence Dooley & Christopher Ridgway, editors

Foreword by Mary Heffernan

Part I: Assembling and Dispersing

‘I thought everyone tries to get pieces out of there, not in’: collecting
for the Irish country house, c.1950–2020
William Laffan (ind.)

Carton House and its contents: collection and dispersal in context,
1729–1949
Terence Dooley (MU)

‘A course of wandering picture hunting’: George Scharf ’s survey
of English country house collections, 1856–7
Philip Cottrell (UCD) 

New walls for old pictures: the Castle Howard bequest to the

National Gallery
Christopher Ridgway (Castle Howard)

Conspiracies of silence: contextualizing value at country house
contents auctions in inter-war England
Elena Porter (Oxford U)

The rise and decline of the country house sale, 1977–2020: from
Mentmore to Chatsworth – a personal reflection
James Miller (Sotheby’s)

Checks and balances: respecting private owners and protecting the
national heritage
Wendy Philips (Sotheby’s)

The library at Marlfield, Co. Tipperary: its creation and destruction
Robert O’Byrne (Irish Georgian Society)

Part II: Contexts and Reinterpretations

‘It was voted to refurnish the house as far as possible’: alternate approaches to country house collections in America
Stephen Hague (Rowan University, NJ)

Transforming Farmleigh: from private residence to national treasure
Judith Hill (UL)

Hillsborough Castle and gardens: creating a modern collection
Christopher Warleigh-Lack (Historic Royal Palaces)

‘Selling the family silver’ – and returning it home: the history of plate
collections and their display in National Trust houses
James Rothwell (National Trust)

Country house collections and museums in Lithuania: a tale of cultural
Appropriation
Salvijus Kulevicius (Vilnius U)

Private archives in the Irish country house: a personal perspective
Lesley Whiteside (ind.)