18 JUNE 1954, Page 7

Kunstgeschichte

And at Chatsworth what is to happen to the Benediction of St. Aethelwold in the library, to the Raphaels and Rembrandts, to the Memlinc Triptych and the sculptures and brasses ? I suppose they must be sold to America to please the Treasury. The fact that the superb collection at Chatsworth of works of art is a monument to a great family, whose taste is expressed in it and whose personality pervades the house and galleries and their setting, must be forgotten. This part of our history .cannot be reckoned in terms of money and so it is useless. Those pictures which are not sold to the New World must be given into the dead hands of public museums. Some will go to the Victoria and Albert, some will go to the National Gallery and the less ' important' pieces can be acquired by local museums. The collection at Chatsworth must not be seen in relation to the history of the family whose discernment it enshrines. Instead it must be dismembered and the dead limbs hung sterilised on the walls of hygienic galleries, there to be lectured upon in the Teutonic jargon of the new science of ' Art History.' Thus both the Treasury and pedantry will benefit. '