Journal of the History of Collections Advance Access originally published online on July 20, 2006
Journal of the History of Collections 2006 18(2):225-236; doi:10.1093/jhc/fhl013
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© The Author 2006. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.
In all cases of difference adopt Signor Riaño's view
Collecting Spanish decorative arts at South Kensington in the late nineteenth century
Juan Facundo Riaño (1829–1901), an eminent Spanish scholar, administrator and politician, was appointed as adviser to the South Kensington Museum on the acquisition of Spanish works of art in 1870. He sent monthly reports to the Museum authorities from 1871 to 1877, noting items for sale in Madrid and elsewhere in Spain. As well as recommending purchases of plaster casts and photographs, he was responsible for a number of important acquisitions, particularly in the field of the decorative arts, such as textiles, ceramics and glass, jewels from the shrine at Zaragoza, and a highly important tenth-century ivory casket from Córdoba.
1 In the original document cited, the word ‘Chartes’ has a second erroneous ‘r’, so that it reads as ‘Chartres’; this ‘r’ seems to have been added subsequently.
2 National Archives, ED 28/25; Board Minutes of the South Kensington Museum, 23 May 1870. The minutes are summarized in the nominal file Juan Facundo Riaño i, report dated 31 December 1871. Hereafter the nominal files for Riaño, which are all held at the Registry in the Victoria & Albert Museum, will be referred to as Riaño nominal files.
3 Cole's diary entry for 16 April 1870, cited in C. Oman, ‘The jewels of Our Lady of the Pillar at Saragossa’, apollo 85 (1967), p. 403. I am grateful to Richard Edgcumbe for this reference. See also letters from Cole to Layard of 18 February and 11 May 1870; Layard correspondence held in the British Library (hereafter BL), Add. MS 38997.
4 For Riaño see F. Cuenca, Biblioteca de autores andaluces modernos y contemporáneos (Madrid, 1921), pp. 298–9 (I am grateful to Barry Taylor for this reference); V. Herrero Mediavilla and L. R. Aquayo Nayle (eds.), Archivo biográfico de España, Portugal e Iberoamérica (Munich, 1986 onwards) microfiches held in the British Library; M. Trusted, Spanish Sculpture. Catalogue of the Post-Medieval Spanish Sculpture in Wood, Terracotta, Alabaster, Marble, Stone, Lead and Jet in the Victoria and Albert Museum (London, 1996), p. 8; M. Almagro-Gorbea (ed.), El Gabinete de Antigüedades de la Real Academia de la Historia (Madrid, 1999), pp. 144–6; and M. R. Caballero, Inicios de la historia del arte en España. La Institución Libre de Enseñanza (1876–1936) (Madrid, 2002), pp. 34–7, both these last references cited in F. Prado-Vilar, ‘Enclosed in ivory: the miseducation of al-Mughira’, Journal of the David Collection (ed. K. von Folsach and J. Meyer) (Copenhagen, 2005), 2, pt 1, p. 157 and note 89 on p. 163. I am grateful to Paul Williamson for this reference, and to David Carrión for obtaining copies of the texts for me. See also C. Wainwright (ed. C. Gere), ‘The making of the South Kensington Museum iii. Collecting abroad’, Journal of the History of Collections 14 no. 1 (2002), pp. 46–7.
5 Riaño nominal file i, report dated 31 December 1871. The November report seems not to have survived. The appointment is also recorded in the précis of the Board Minutes, vol. E2, p. 109, at the Victoria & Albert Museum Registry.
6 J. F. Riaño, The Industrial Arts in Spain (London, 1879).
7 A. Burton, Vision & Accident. The Story of the Victoria and Albert Museum (London, 1999), p. 131.
8 Further Riaño papers are held at the Fundación Lázaro Galdiano in Madrid, and at the Hispanic Society of America in New York. I am grateful to Juan Antonio Yeves and to Mitchell Codding, respectively, for confirming this, and to Margarita Estella and Mariam Rosser-Owen for alerting me to these two depositories of some of Riaño's correspondence and other documents relating to him.
9 J. A. Calderón Quijano, ‘Correspondencia de don Pascual de Ganyangos y de su hija Emilia G. de Riaño en el Museo Britanico’, Boletín de la Real Academia de la Historia 182, Cuaderno ii (Madrid, 1985), pp. 217–308.
10 Trusted, op. cit. (note 4), pp. 3–7.
11 Riaño nominal file iii, report dated 28 February 1875.
12 Riaño nominal file i, memo dated 16 November 1871.
13 Inv. no. 173-1864. This was originally acquired by Robinson.
14 Inv. no. 90-1864. Trusted, op. cit. (note 4), cat. no. 53 on pp. 118–9.
15 E. James, The Victoria and Albert Museum. A Bibliography and Exhibition Chronology, 1852–1996 (London, 1998), p. 36. Other catalogues were published during the 1870s on lace, metalwork and other sections of the collection.
16 Letter from Henry Cole to Layard 17 January 1870; BL, Add. MS 38997, op. cit. (note 3).
17 Riaño nominal file iii, report dated 31 December 1874.
18 Ibid., report dated 30 April 1875, and letter dated 3 May 1975.
19 Ibid., report on the 131 photographs ... at the Royal Palace in Madrid, April 1875. Some of the Spanish royal tapestries were exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, in 1991; see Resplendence of the Spanish Monarchy: Renaissance Tapestries and Armor from the Patrimonio Nacional, exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, 1991). See also P. Junquera and C. Herrero Carretero, Catálogo de Tapices del Patrimonio Nacional, 3 vols. (Madrid, 1986–2000).
20 The two volumes are numbered X.75 and X.76; they are duplicates of 76209 to 76307, 76309 to 76331, 76210A and 76317A, 77900 and 77900A, 77901 and 77901A. A label in the front of each volume records that the photographs were given by M. Bauer, but each label is cut in half, the lower half missing, and the content of the information on the missing halves is unknown. I am grateful to Kate Best and Clare Browne for their help in tracing these volumes.
21 Perhaps they were mounted by the Museum, since the original cost quoted by Riaño above did not apparently include mounts.
22 Register in the Department of Word and Image.
23 J. C. Ruiz Souza, ‘Sinagogas sefardíes monumentales en el contexto de la arquitectura medieval hispana’ in Memoria de Sefarad, exh. cat., Centro Cultural San Marcos (Toledo, 2002), pp. 229–32.
24 Riaño nominal file i, reports dated 2 January and 30 June 1872, respectively, and Register of the casts at the Museum (volumes held in the Department of Sculpture, Metalwork, Ceramics and Glass), inv. nos. 1871-60 and 1872-261.
25 Register of the casts at the Museum (volumes held in the Department of Sculpture, Metalwork, Ceramics and Glass), inv. no. 1871-61. These were evidently repaired in the Museum at the time.
26 Riaño nominal file ii, report dated 19 March 1872.
27 Ibid., report dated 31 March 1872.
28 M. Baker, ‘The establishment of a masterpiece: the cast of the Pórtico de la Gloria in the South Kensington Museum, London, in the 1870s’, Actas Simposio Internacional sobre ‘O Pórtico da Gloria e a Arte do seu Tempo’ Santiago de Compostela, 3–8 October, 1988 (La Coruña, 1991), pp. 479–89.
29 Riaño nominal file ii report dated 30 June 1872. The Cast Courts (then known as the Architectural Courts) had already been laid out by the time this recommendation was made.
30 Inv. no. 1890-52. For the models by Rafael Contreras, see T. Raquejo, ‘La Alhambra en el Museo Victoria & Albert. Un catálogo de las piezas de la Alhambra y de algunas obras neonazaries’, Cuadernos de Arte e Iconografía I, 1 (1988), pp. 225–8.
31 Riaño nominal file ii, report dated 18 October 1873.
32 For the collection of objects associated with the Alhambra in the Museum, see Raquejo, op. cit. (note 30). For the casts mentioned here see pp. 229–34. Three models of the Alhambra came to the Museum in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries: inv. nos. 230-1890, A. 26-1936 (this model was initially a loan made in 1897, not acquired until 1936), and 927-1900.
33 Riaño nominal file iii, report dated 28 February 1875.
34 Inv. no. 48-1876. Riaño nominal file iv, letter from Riaño to Philip Cunliffe Owen, Director of the South Kensington Museum, dated 4 January 1876.
35 Oman, op. cit. (note 3), p. 400. This article discusses and illustrates some of the jewels acquired by the South Kensington Museum at the sale.
36 Cole Papers, Box 14, cited in Wainwright, op. cit. (note 4), p. 58.
38 Ibid., p. 403. Riaño was noted in relation to the acquisition in the relevant Board Minutes. National Archives ED 28/25; Board Minutes, 27 May and 25 June 1870.
39 Lady Layard's Diaries. BL, Add. MS 46153.
40 Inv. nos. 319 to 348-1870. List of Objects in the Art Division, South Kensington Museum, acquired during the year 1870 ... (London, 1871), pp. 29–32.
42 Inv. nos. 319-1870 and 335-1870. Oman, op. cit. (note 3), p. 404.
43 Lady Layard's Diaries, op. cit. (note 39).
44 Wainwright, op. cit. (note 4), p. 59.
45 Inv. nos. 661 to 742A-1870; List of Objects, op. cit. (note 40), pp. 59–66. The purchase was made through the bankers Messrs Weisweiller and Baüer, who acted for the Museum on other occasions (see below). Atienza is mentioned in the handwritten Registers of the Museum, and in the correspondence abstract (MA/4/7, p. 329) of Registered Papers 1870/25129 for 17 June 1870, although these papers no longer exist. I am grateful to James Sutton for this information.
46 Oman, op. cit. (note 3), p. 400.
47 Inv. nos. 1447 to 1455-1870; List of Objects, op. cit. (note 40), pp. 110–1; S. Bury, Victoria and Albert Museum Jewellery Gallery Summary Catalogue (London, 1982), p. 56; J. D. Dodds (ed.), Al-Andalus. The art of Islamic Spain, exh. cat., Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, 1992), cat. no. 18 on p. 221. I am grateful to Richard Edgcumbe for telling me about these objects.
48 The missing memo was numbered 42149, and is noted in the Museum Registers held in Department of Sculpture, Metalwork, Ceramics and Glass in the Museum. Cole had acquired examples of Valencian and other Spanish nineteenth-century jewellery for the Museum in 1870 (inv. nos. 111 to 115-1870), and must have already had an interest in this material.
49 National Archives, ED 28/25, Board Minutes 23 May 1870; Riaño nominal file I, summary.
50 Inv. nos. 1083 to 1260-1871; List of Objects in the Art Division, South Kensington Museum, acquired during the year 1871 ... (London, 1872), pp. 87–103.
51 Henry Scott, one of Cole's and then Cunliffe Owen's deputies, who officiated at the Museum from 1865 until his death in 1883; Burton, op. cit. (note 7), pp. 83, 95, 117–8.
52 Riaño nominal file i, report dated 31 March 1872.
53 Inv. nos. 1196 to 1203. These were bought at the Annual International Exhibition of 1873; List of Objects in the Art Division, South Kensington Museum, acquired during the year 1873 ... (London, 1874), pp. 77–8.
54 Riaño nominal file ii, report dated 31 March 1873.
55 Riaño nominal file i, letter dated 19 April 1873.
56 Inv. nos. 132 and 133-1873; C. Oman, The Golden Age of Hispanic Silver 1400–1665 (London, 1968), p. 22, cat. no. 54.
57 Riaño nominal file i, report dated 5 January 1872.
58 J. F. Riaño, Classified and Descriptive Catalogue of the Art Objects of Spanish Production in the South Kensington Museum (London, 1872), p. XIX.
59 Riaño, op. cit. (note 4), pp. 41–57.
60 Riaño nominal file ii, report dated 31 December 1872. Layard was himself a great collector, and unofficially advised the Museum on acquisitions.
61 Burton, op. cit. (note 7), p. 83.
62 Registered descriptions in the Department of Furniture, Textiles and Fashion, entry for inv. no. 64-1873.
63 Inv. nos. 1202 to 1248-1875; Riaño nominal file iii, correspondence and memos June–December 1873.
64 Riaño nominal file ii, report dated 31 March 1873.
65 Trusted, op. cit. (note 4), p. 7.
66 Riaño nominal file iii, report dated 28 February 1875.
67 Inv. nos. 135 to 405-1873, and 994 to 1005-1873. I am grateful to Mitchell Codding for suggesting that Bonifacio was almost certainly Juan Facundo's uncle. My thanks also to Mercedes González de Amezúa for her assistance in obtaining some biographical information on Bonifacio.
68 Riaño nominal file i, report dated 19 March 1872. The búcaros acquired for the Museum are inv. nos. 285 to 318-1872.
69 Riaño nominal file ii, letter from Riaño to the Museum dated 1 June 1873.
70 Riaño nominal file iii, letter from Riaño to the Museum, dated 10 August 1874, from 23A Connaught Square, W. London.
71 Riaño nominal file iii, copy of M. D. Wyatt's report dated 11 August 1873.
72 Inv. nos. 323 to 334-1876; other items are untraced.
73 See A. Ray, Spanish Pottery 1248 to 1898 (London, 2000), cat. nos. 346, 358, 397 and 409. Some of the items were unfortunately not included in Ray, e.g. inv. no. 334-1876.
74 Mr and Mrs Yates Thompson nominal file, Victoria & Albert Museum Registry.
75 Maskell's scholarly preface (of over 100 pages) to the catalogue of ivories in the South Kensington Museum had recently been published: A Description of the Ivories Ancient and Medieval in the South Kensington Museum with a Preface by William Maskell (London, 1872).
76 Riaño nominal file iii, reports by Mr Maskell to Mr Owen (Philip Cunliffe Owen) dated 16 August and 3 September 1875, respectively.
77 Ibid., Maskell's report of October 1875.
78 Nominal file Emilia G. de Riaño. Victoria & Albert Museum Registry.
79 Inv. no. 368-1880. See the entry on this piece with further bibliography in The Art of Medieval Spain AD 500 to 1200, exh. cat. [although the exhibition was cancelled], Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, 1993), cat. no. 39.
80 Inv. nos. 10-1866 and 301-1866. Wainwright, op. cit. (note 4), p. 58.
Address for correspondence Marjorie Trusted, Department of Sculpture, Metalwork, Ceramics and Glass, Victoria and Albert Museum, South Kensington, London SW7 2RL m.trusted{at}vam.ac.uk