Examples of the Northern Schools in this same collection include portraits of Elisabeth Stuart, Queen of Bohemia, daughter of James I of England, by Mierevelt and of the Duke of Neubourg by Van Dyck.
In the Salerno Collection is an interesting little work by Ingres representing Paolo Malatesta and Francesca da Rimini in the ecstasy of their first kiss, and also a portrait of a Young Woman by Van Loo and some fine mosaics from Herculaneum and Pompeii.
Although this Salerno Collection is full of interest in itself, compared with later acquisitions it is but of secondary importance. It was French Art that chiefly attracted the Duke, and he consequently missed no opportunity of extending his purchases in that direction. From the well-known firm of Colnaghi in Pall Mall he bought portraits of members of the Valois family, such as, for instance, Henri II as a child (attributed to Clouet), and as King by Primaticcio; the Comte de Cossé Brissac; Madame and Mademoiselle de Longueville, by Beauburn; and other portraits by Mignard, Largillière, etc.
At the Bernal Sale in 1855 he acquired for 6,000 francs the much-discussed portrait of Odet de Coligny; portraits of Queen Eleonore, of Henri II, of Henri III, of Elisabeth of Austria, and of Louis XIV, the last named of these being by Hyacinthe Rigaud.
At the famous Utterson Sale the Prince acquired some of those wonderful sixteenth-century French drawings which formed the nucleus of his unique collection of this branch of art; and at about the same period he also bought a number of engravings, amongst which were fine examples by Marc Antonio Raimondi and Rembrandt.
From the collection of his brother the Duke of Orleans he bought The Assassination of the Duc de Guise by Delaroche, and a painting by Descamps; and at the Lawrence Sale in 1856 secured a portrait of his ancestor Philippe Egalité by Sir Joshua Reynolds. This was apparently a sketch for the life-size portrait commissioned by the Prince of Wales (afterwards George IV) during the French Prince’s exile in England. The larger picture, formerly at Carlton House, was destroyed by fire in 1820, which greatly enhances the value of the sketch at Chantilly.
The portraits of Mazarin and Richelieu by Philippe de Champaigne, now at Chantilly, were formerly at Château d’Eu, and formed part of Louis Philippe’s collection, as also did de Troy’s Déjeuner d’Huîtres and Lancret’s Déjeuner de Jambon. From the same source came two splendid cabinets by Riesener and the Beauvais furniture now in one of the salons of the Petit Château.
The Prince was evidently a great admirer of Poussin, for in 1854 he acquired for 9,175 francs the celebrated Massacre of the Innocents, and in 1860 another work by the same master, Thésée découvrant l’épée de son père, which is typical of that artist’s particular style.
At the Northwick Sale in 1859 yet another Poussin, The Infancy of Bacchus, was added; besides a large panel by Perugino, an early work, once in the Church of San Girolamo at Lucca. An interesting painting representing a Dance of Angels, probably by a Sienese master of the fifteenth century, came also from this same sale. Titian’s Ecce Homo was bought for 15,000 francs from the Averoldi family of Brescia, for whom it is said to have been painted.[19]
The Woman taken in Adultery (attributed to Giorgione), The Martyrdom of St. Stephen by Annibale Carracci, and Mars and Venus by Paolo Veronese were bought in London in 1860 from M. Nieuwenhuys; and in 1864 at a public sale in Paris the celebrated painting by Ingres representing The Story of Antiochus and Stratonice fell, amid general applause, to the lot of the Duc d’Aumale for 92,100 francs.