Robert Peel

Sir Robert Peel was born in Bury, Lancashire. An English politician, he served as Prime Minister (1834-1835 and 1841-1846) and Home Secretary. He founded the Metropolitan Police Service of the City of London. Peel was a trustee of the National Gallery from 1827 until his death in 1850 (in Westminster, Middlesex) and actively promoted the arts.   Peel began to collect pictures from about 1820 through dealers like William Buchanan, Samuel Woodburn and C. J. Niewenhuys. Ultimately, his collection grew to about 60 pictures and drawings by Rubens and Van Dyck and almost seventy seventeenth century Flemish and Dutch works.    His son, Sir Robert Peel (1822-1895), continued to acquire works, but financial woes forced him to sell the collection at Christie’s in 1871. The National Gallery acquired most of Peel’s collection for £75,000.    Peel is mentioned in the provenance for Phillips Wouwerman’s Un Âne dans un paysage (Landscape with a Donkey), as recorded in the German Inventory, Inv. No. 245: “Slg. Sir Robert Peel, Lonson (Waagen 1854), Wangen I, 408; Versteigerung A.W.Peel, London, 10. Mai 1900, Nr. 232 an Kleinberger, Paris.”   Links:   [about:blank https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/research/research-centre/archive/record/NGA6] [about:blank https://www.oxfordartonline.com/groveart/view/10.1093/gao/9781884446054.001,0001/oao-9781884446054-e-7000066015] [about:blank https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Peel] Armstrong, Walter. Peel Collection and the Dutch School of Painting. Seeley and Co., Limited; E.P. Dutton & Co, 1904.