What did the Duchess get up to in her wood-and-turf hut?
There are many odd tales behind the origins of classic gastronomic dishes. Who would have believed that the old Ipswich bruiser, Cardinal Wolsey, was responsible for that perfect combination, strawberries and cream? No one had thought of sewing them together before. There is an even more curious history of that admirable side dish, pommes duchesse. It was not invented by Talleyrand's chef or a three-star maestro from the Michelin, but by that earthy, not to say peat-stained, painter Sir Edwin Landseer (1803-72). How so?
He came from a fairly humble background. His father was an engraver who campaigned vigorously (as any student of the Farington Diary will know) for those of his trade to be admitted as full members of the Royal Academy. Young Edwin was a prodigy, specialising in animals, brought to notice by that sad enthusiast Benjamin Robert Haydon. By 16 he was exhibiting at the RA, was elected an associate at the earliest possible age (24), and then a full member. From the first he was taken up by the landed aristocracy who loved his portraits of their dogs, horses and prize bulls. Their wives liked him too, for he was personable, witty, a superb mimic (of people, animals, machines and birds) and as Queen Victoria put it, 'very good looking'.
In 1824 he visited the Highlands, and fell in love with its scenery (no one had ever painted it better: see his 'Lake Scene: Effect of a Storm' in the Tate), its way of life and above all its red deer. Among his patrons, and friends, was the 6th Duke of Bedford, one of the world's richest men (and the father of Lord John 'Reform Bill' Russell). He also met the Duke's second wife, Georgiana, and fell for her. When they first met he was 21, she 42, and already the mother of ten children. But it is clear she fell for him, too, and they probably became lovers. Certainly society regarded them as an item.
The Duchess was vivacious, immensely energetic, sporty, sexy and unconventional. A thorough Highland lady (her father was the 4th Duke of Gordon), she fished, shot and stalked with skill and enthusiasm. She leased from her own family the Glenfeshie estate, not far from Balmoral, and anyone who has been there will know it to be as close to a paradise as we are likely to find on earth. The Duchess had erected a series of wood-and-turf huts so that she and her guests could stay in the wilds close to the river and the stalking-grounds. They lived rough, off the local produce which they provided for themselves: immense haunches of venison (with redcurrant jelly) and saddles of mutton, salmon, trout, grouse, ptarmigan and, I think, capercailzie or Highland turkeys. There was a large kitchen hut where all this produce was cooked. The Duchess brought with her a personal maid and a perfectly competent professional chef. But she liked to do a Marie Antoinette act in the kitchen, and Landseer was even keener on trying new dishes, especially on wet days when he could neither hunt nor paint outdoors. The result of one of his efforts he called after Georgie, pommes duchesse.
Landseer painted a magnificent full-sized picture, 'Scene in the Highlands', which shows the Duchess, her young son Cosmo Russell, her brother the 5th Duke of Gordon, their head stalker and a magnificent deerhound. At their feet is a dead hind, and the background is Glenfeshie. But he also did many drawings of their life up there, and its dramatis personae. I possess a particularly fine watercolour, which gives me especial pleasure because I identified the artist and the subject. It shows an old Highland woman, in a big black bonnet and an old stalker's tweed jacket miles too big for her. She clutches a long-handed spade used in digging up worms. I finally made out what is written at the bottom in Landseer's writing: 'Sarah. E.L. Feshie Cottage. [two words indecipherable] Sketched for the Dss. of Bd.'
On his way to the Highlands, in early autumn, Landseer often stayed at Chillingham Castle, near Alnwick. This is the home of the famous Tankerville clan, and their still more famous wild white cattle, which are unique in the world, and go back to pre-Roman times. Landseer loved these beasts, which he drew and painted endlessly. Two of his last and greatest works (1867), when he was supposedly past it, are huge pictures of the Chillingham deer and cattle, companion pieces, now in the Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle-upon-Tyne. The immense, savage and muscular creature in the cattle picture is the best painting of a bull ever done, making Goya's seem feeble by comparison. Lady Ida, daughter of the 6th Earl of Tankerville, who later married the 13th Earl of Dalhousie, compiled a scrapbook which included many Landseer sketches left at Chillingham. Some 36 of the sketches were sold in Agnew's 100th Annual Exhibition of Watercolours and Drawings in 1973, most of them at the prices then current, less than £100 each. One showed a turtle, and was thought to be a reference to Landseer's culinary activities. Who has it now, I wonder? Hard to think the turtle was taken up to Glenfeshie, and that the Duchess's guests were sewed freshly made turtle soup. But not impossible. In my experience you never know what you are going to get to eat up in the Highlands.
Landseer is one of the most neglected and underrated of the great English painters. Leaving aside his paintings, a dozen of which are masterpieces of the highest international standards, there are his countless drawings, a large proportion of them not working drawings but little croquis and caricatures done for the amusement of fellow guests at house parties on wet autumn days. Some are of the Duchess, in various postures and activities. One of her daughters married into the Abercorns, and at Baronscourt in Northern Ireland there are over 300 drawings by Landseer. Another house he visited was called Redleaf, and albums from there are still in a private collection, I think, as are groups once belonging to the family of the famous society beau 'Bear' Ellice. I should think there must be over a thousand surviving Landseer drawings of this type, unique in English art for their range, brilliance, delicacy, wit and fun. Some are famous — Paganini playing his violin, the portly Sydney Smith accompanied by a friar and devil, Lady Holland in her bathchair, Samuel Rogers using a back-scratcher, Thackeray giving a reading. But the vast majority have never been publicly exhibited, let alone reproduced.
What I would like to see is Yale, now easily the world's best art publisher, whose many volumes of catalogues raisonees adorn my shelves, devote an entire volume to these fascinating and often beautiful sketches. Some of them would need a lot of research, but it would be a labour of love for a young man or woman who cares for the behind-the-scenes events, and fashionable personalities of the 1820s, '30s, '40s and '50s. If I were just starting out as an art historian, I would do it myself. The book would be an immensely valuable window into the period and a collector's treasure.
What happened to the Duchess? The 6th Duke put up with her behaviour and remained a friend of Landseer. But he punished her by leaving her unprovided for when he died. Her stepchildren, including the 7th Duke, were naturally unsympathetic. She had to live 'in a quiet way', dying in Nice in 1853. She merits a book too, and there would be no difficulty in illustrating it. Any offers?
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