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A remodeled Cistercian abbey owned by Sir Francis Drake (ca. 1540–1596) and inhabited by his descendants until 1946. The small but fine collection of Dutch pictures includes a self-portrait of Rembrandt. Self-portrait, wearing a Feathered Bonnet was acquired as a genuine Rembrandt by Harold Samuel, Baron Samuel of Wych Cross (1912–1987) and was considered as such until 1968 when Horst Gerson proposed that it was the work of Govaert Flinck. Technical analysis at the Hamilton Kerr Institute, University of Cambridge, led to its reattribution by the late Rembrandt scholar, Ernst van de Wetering in 2014.
On loan to Buckland from St Peter’s Church, Lewtrenchard, Devon, is the early fourteenth-century triptych attributed to Cornelius Engelbrechtsz., its center panel is a copy of the high altar in the Onze-Lieve-Vrouwekerk, Antwerp, by Quentin Metsys. Other Dutch pictures in the collection include genre scenes by David Teniers the Younger and Adriaen van Ostade and two marine paintings by Willem van de Velde the Younger.
Alice Rylance-Watson, Assistant Curator of Pictures and Sculpture, with contributions by other National Trust curators and staff members (April 2022)