When the Courtauld Gallery’s impressionist pictures were shown at the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris in 2019, the Parisian public was so bowled over by the exhibition that some were inclined to claim Samuel Courtauld as an honorary Frenchman. This was not completely unreasonable; after all Courtauld (1876–1947) was a Francophile from an old Huguenot family. But it was even more of a compliment to the magnificent array of French art he had put together.
In this city of impressionism, home to the Musée d’Orsay and the Orangerie, half a million visitors came to see it. I went round that show with an eminent art dealer, and as we did so she confided that she had never seen Courtauld’s Cézannes, Gauguins and Van Goghs look as splendid as they did there. She was right, but now they are hung and lit with equal magnificence at Somerset House.
Getting them so satisfactorily settled into this Georgian pile has taken more than 30 years.
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