The origins of the Collection
The Government Art Collection dates back to 1899 when a few portraits and landscapes were bought as an inexpensive way of sprucing up tired-looking government rooms in Whitehall, without having to pay for full-scale refurbishment.
‘Saving a good sum in decoration…’
On 5 December 1899, Reginald Baliol Brett, the Permanent Secretary to the Office of Works, wrote to Sir Francis Mowatt, the Permanent Secretary to the Treasury asking to spend £150 to buy five artworks for the Foreign Office. The walls of the building on King Charles Street had started to look shabby.
This note is in The National Archives Collection and we consider it to be the foundation document of the Government Art Collection– illustrating the unusual circumstances of how it began!
My dear Sir Francis
I propose to offer £150 for the five… for the F. O. [Foreign Office]. They will hang in the “State Room” and save us a good sum in decoration. Do you approve?
Letter from Lord Esher to Francis Mowatt seeking Treasury approval to purchase five works of art © Crown Copyright, National Archives
Sir Francis Mowatt (1837-1919) civil servant; Permanent Secretary of the Treasury 1904 by Charles Wellington Furse, oil on canvas © image: Crown Copyright
