The expansion of art
The Fortnightly Review vol.37
January 1885 pp.55-69
Ferdinand James Anselm de Rothschild
Notes
Illuminates Ferdinand's views on art, the collecting of art, and the value of private and public art collections in the national life. He perceives and welcomes a trend towards greater accessibility to art and the arts, whilst warning against vulgarity. The role of the newly made private collection is to attract the cognoscenti and thence the fashionable, and 'Thus brilliant gatherings are formed which have a beneficent influence on the tone and the conditions of society at large, and may lead to the social and political development of a future age' (p.57). This could read as a manifesto of aims for Waddesdon.