CODART, Dutch and Flemish art in museums worldwide

Penrhyn Castle, National Trust

Information

A neo-Norman castle with a picture collection largely assembled by Colonel Edward Gordon Douglas-Pennant, 1st Baron Penrhyn of Llandegai (1800–1886). At the advice of Belgian dealer C. J. Nieuwenhuys, he acquired seventeenth-century Dutch paintings including Rembrandt’s Catrina Hooghsaet (now private collection), Jan Steen’s Adolf and Catharina Croeser, ‘The Burgomaster of Delft and his Daughter (now Rijksmuseum) and The Conversion of Saint Hubert by Philips Wouwerman, the latter once owned by the Prince of Orange, later King Willem II of the Netherlands. In around 1850 Pennant bought his first old master, not from a dealer but from his son’s tutor, who had in turn acquired it when travelling on the Continent: this was Dieric Bouts’ masterpiece St Luke painting the Madonna and Child (now Bowes Museum). Other of Pennant’s notable acquisitions include La fête du hameau by David Teniers II and Adam Pynacker’s Landscape with Arched Gateway which was once in Benjamin West’s collection and is now co-owned by the National Trust and National Museum Wales and currently on display there. In 1899 the 2nd Lord Penrhyn had the pictures cleaned and rehung by Sir Walter Armstrong, Director of the National Gallery of Ireland and they were catalogued by his daughter, Alice Douglas-Pennant.

Alice Rylance-Watson, Assistant Curator of Pictures and Sculpture, with contributions by other National Trust curators and staff members (April 2022)


News about this institution