Lady Wallace: The French Woman Who Gifted the Wallace Collection to the British Nation

Fascinating online lecture from the Wallace Collection on Lady Wallace, Julie Amelie Castelnau who bequeathed the Wallace Collection to the nation. 

Suzanne Higgott told us the story of Julie’s life from humble beginnings as the illegitimate daughter of a  factotum and a linen maid and how she in turn bore Richard Wallace an illegitimate son, before living with him for 20 years then marrying him on his father’s death. Wallace himself was the illegitimate son of the 4th Marquis of Hertford and was surprised to inherit his father’s estate and art collection.

Higgott told us how Lady Wallace was viewed rather negatively by contemporaries in society, partly due to her origins and also because she never learned to speak English despite the couple making London their main residence. She inherited the collection on her husband’s death in 1890 and in turn left it to the nation when she died in 1896, possibly fulfilling his wishes.

 

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