more specific, pointing out: “If the collection you propose to form were made to illustrate the
history of Art in a chronological and systematic arrangement, it would speak powerfully to the
public mind”.124
This goes to show how Albert was well aware of the latest developments in art history. A
chronological hanging had first been introduced at the Belvedere in Vienna at the end of the
18 century, but was by no means usual by the second half of the 19th century.125 Although it
was more recently being espoused by Albert’s former compatriot, Gustav Waagen, the
director of the Berlin picture gallery. It was Waagen - perhaps not coincidentally- who had
also exerted some influence over the presentation of British collections through the
publication of his thoughts on the National Gallery during the period of its reorganisation in
the early 1850s and who had compiled a three-volume book “Treasures of Art in Great
Britain” which had in turn incited the Manchester businessmen to organise “their”
exhibition.126
Albert’s suggestions were followed up and - whether this had anything to do with it or not -
the exhibition was a major success, with many (later) celebrities such as Karl Marx, Charles
Dickens, Florence Nightingale and even the Queen of The Netherlands attending. 127 More
exhibitions devoted to Old Masters were organised in its wake - before the Manchester show,
the word “exhibition” had apparently been associated primarily with the display of paintings
by contemporary artists.128 Finally, what is once again striking is the confluence of British
and German traditions. It has even been said that the Manchester exhibition “was a German
exhibition”, in that “it set out to challenge many of the principles that had governed the
fashionable exhibitions organised over the previous forty years by the British Institution and
its galleries in Pall Mall”.129
The second example of Prince Albert’s importance for the discipline of art history is his idea
to compile a collection of copies of all works of Raphael. He came up with the idea in late
1852, having decided that the collections at the Royal Library at Windsor Castle I which
included far more works by Old Masters apart from some by Raphael, such as a large number
of works by Michelangelo - required thorough reordering so as “to afford increased facility of
reference to these various valuable art treasures, and thus to render them available for a
thorough and critical illustration of the history of painting”.130 The idea was to start by
focusing on one Old Master, and “the Prince chose that master for who he has always
124 As quoted in: Ibid., 84.
125 On developments in Vienna in the late 18th century see: Debora J. Meijers, Kunst als Natur: Die Habsburger
Gemäldegalerie in Wien um 1780 (Wien: Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, 1995). On later trends concerning
the design o f art exhibitions see: Charlotte Klonk, Spaces o f Experience: Art Gallery Interiors from 1800 to 2000
(New Haven; London: Y ale University Press, 2009).
Christopher Whitehead, The Public Art Museum in Nineteenth Century Britain: The Development o f the
National Gallery (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005), 17—20; Haskell, The Ephemeral Museum: Old Master Paintings
and the Rise o f the Art Exhibition, 83.
1 7 Haskell, The Ephemeral Museum: Old Master Paintings and the Rise o f the Art Exhibition, 88.
128 Ibid.
129 Ibid., 83.
Carl Ruland, The Works o f Raphael Santi Da Urbino as Represented in The Raphael Collection in the Royal
Library at Windsor Castle, Formed by H.R.H. The Prince Consort, 1853-1861 and Completed by Her Majesty
Queen Victoria, 1876, viii.
entertained the strongest predilection”, as was later explained.1 1 In February 1853 Albert’s
librarian, Carl Ruland, began to acquire whatever engravings, lithographs or photographs of
works by Raphael were available. This task was greatly facilitated by the fact that a complete
catalogue of Raphael’s oeuvre had recently been compiled by Johann David Passavant.
Soon, however, Ruland saw himself confronted with the problem that, in the case of many of
Raphael’s works, copies had never been made. As he later remembered, “[i]n these instances
the newly-invented art of photography was resorted to”.132 Indeed, what was considered to be
the first photographic image depicting some level of detail had only been taken in 1838 by
Louis Daguerre. Using Albert’s influence, photographers were subsequently dispatched across
the Continent to take photographs of Raphael’s works. The task proved Herculean, and a
catalogue was only published two years after Albert’s untimely demise, in 1863.
5. London Calling Haarlem
Aside from the fact that this was “one of the first attempts to build up a complete collection of
illustrations of the works of a single artist”133, it is this compilation of copies of all of
Raphael’s works that can serve to illustrate how the ripples caused by the flurry of activity
unleashed by Albert in London eventually reached Teylers Museum in Haarlem.
As was already mentioned in the previous chapter, Teylers Museum’s art collection contained
drawings by Raphael, acquired as part of Christina of Sweden’s collection in 1790. They had
not been forgotten by Passavant and therefore did not go unnoticed by Ruland either. In July
1859 the Dutch King’s Commissioner for the province of North Holland approached the
trustees of the Teyler Foundation, passing on a request from Albert “to obtain, for the benefit
of H.R.H., photographs of drawings by Raphael that are in the art collection of T.F. [the
Teyler Foundation]”, as the minutes of the trustees’ meetings read.134 The trustees promptly
replied that they were “most pleased” to do this, although they did ask that the photographs be
taken “under the supervision of the custodian of Teylers Art Collection in the building of
T.F.” 135
Interestingly enough, the Commissioner soon added a request of his own: in September he
enquired whether it would be possible that the “photographic depictions [...] were made
131 E. Becker and C. Ruland, ‘The ‘Raphael Collection’ o f H.R.H. The Prince Consort,” The Fine Arts Quarterly
Review 1 (1863): 28.
132 Ibid., 29.
133 Jennifer Montagu, ‘The ‘Ruland/Raphael Collection’,” in Art History through the Camera ’s Lens, ed. Helene
E. Roberts (Australia: Gordon and Breach, 1995), 37.
134 “om ten behoeve van Z.K.H. photographien te erlangen van teekeningen van Raphael, die zieh in de
kunstverzameling van T.St. bevinden”; “Directienotulen”, 08.07.1859, Haarlem, ATS, vol. 9.
135 “gaarne bereid”; “onder toezigt van den bewaarder van Teijlers Kunstverzameling in het gebouw van T.St.”;
Ibid.