The origins of the Collection
The Government Art Collection began in 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 a little shabby.
This note is in The National Archives 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
