Sir John Charles Robinson

Description

John Charles Robinson was born in Nottingham in late 1824 and trained as a painter in Paris under Michel Martin Drolling. During his time in Paris, he was exposed to and learned about the art of Renaissance artists, cultivating a taste that would accompany him throughout his life. In 1847, he returned to England to become a teacher at the School of Design in Hanley (Staffordshire), and in 1852, he was appointed curator of the Museum of Ornamental Art at Marlborough House (Drew, 2018). While working as a curator (1857-1867), he travelled across the Iberian Peninsula with the aim of acquiring new pieces for the museum. In 1857, the collection at Marlborough House was moved to the South Kensington Museum, which is now known as the Victoria & Albert Museum (Burton, 1999). Although he enriched the museum's collection with numerous works of art—mainly from Italian Renaissance masters—he resigned from his position in 1869 and chose to serve private collectors instead. However, he did not solely invest his efforts in helping others complete their collections; he also dedicated himself to acquiring a wide variety of objects. In the 1880s he held the position of Surveyor of the Queen's Pictures and was knighted in 1887. He later retired, passing away in Swanage in 1913 (Davies, 1992). He auctioned his collection on several occasions, with most of the buyers being English and French. He also bequeathed some pieces to museum institutions in London, including a work by El Greco that he donated to the National Gallery. A collector, John Malcolm, purchased his collection of drawings, and after his death, it was acquired by the British Museum. Currently, his collection of drawings is housed at the British Museum, while the rest is dispersed across various institutions.