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A neoclassical mansion with a picture collection principally amassed by Wilbraham Egerton (1781–1856) and his grandson, Wilbraham 2nd Baron and Earl Egerton of Tatton (1832-1909). The Stoning of St Stephen, painted by Sir Anthony van Dyck probably in Palermo and brought to Madrid in 1628, counts among Wilbraham I’s most important acquisitions, in addition to a pair of panel portraits of Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea attributed to Albrecht Bouts after Rogier van der Weyden, purchased in the Low Countries in 1816. An artist working in the manner of Rubens is ascribed to an unusual easel painting depicting a hand emerging from clouds and holding an upturned velvet purse: the emblem of ‘no suffering can compare’ (with that of the bankrupt spendthrift) taken from Reinier Visscher’s Sinnepoppen. A version with extensive pentimenti of Frans Pourbus’ portrait of Vincenzo I Gonzaga is displayed in the state Entrance Hall, while in the Music Room hang richly fruited still lifes by Jan de Heem and his son Cornelis with several other Dutch pictures including an Italianate landscape by Nicholaes Berchem I. Genre scenes by Philips Wouwerman and Cornelis Bega are found in the Card Room, along with a monogrammed panel portrait by Abraham Bloemaert and a miniature portrait of a woman in yellow by Gerard ter Borch, possibly a likeness of the artist’s sister Gesina. Later acquisitions, from the Sir John Murray Scott sale (1913), are Betrothal and French Lesson Interrupted, two oils by the eighteenth-century portraitist and theatrical painter Jacobus Buys. Tatton Park and its collections was left to the National Trust by Maurice, 4th and last Baron Egerton (1874–1958), and is financed and administered by Cheshire County Council.
Alice Rylance-Watson, Assistant Curator of Pictures and Sculpture, with contributions by other National Trust curators and staff members (April 2022)