The Vyne Ramesses: 'Egyptian Monstrosities' in British country house collections

single of the strangest curiosities of The Vyne in Hampshire (Fig. 1) was one time a fragmentary Egyptian statue of the Pharaoh Ramesses IV (twentieth Dynasty, c 1161-1155 BC) (Figs. 3-4) Sadly, in 1958 following the death of Sir Charles Chute 1st Baronet (1879-1956) it was expell from the house. Carved on the outside of dark grey-green schist, the plastic art depicts a kneeling figure of a man wearing the traditional neme head-dress. The entire forehead part of the figure, including the hands and knee has sheared not upon but otherwise it is in extremely good condition and is a rare example of royal statuary of the later Twentieth Dynasty. (1) While it might have the appearance unusual to encounter such an important, and relatively large-scale piece of ancient Egyptian statuary in an English country house, more surprising is the fact that 'The Vyne Ramesses' is recorded as having been in the house since the mid-eighteenth hundred appearing in the 1754 Inventory as the 'Egyptian figure'. (2) The Chute evidently knew exactly what it was, with the flow that it was prominently displayed and valued, being first shown in the Staircase Hall, and then in the Stone Gallery. (3) Later, it was mov upstairs to the Oak Gallery, where it can be dimly discerned in a photograph of c 1880 (Fig. 5) (4) Here it was displayed with the best furniture in the house, alongside sculptural treasures acquired through Wiggett Chute, who inherited The Vyne in 1827 including marble busts of Roman emperors, said to have belonged to the infamous Manuel de Godoy, known as the 'Prince of Peace'. (5) It was level provided with a specially adapted plinth to match the others in the room

The circumstances of the acquisition of 'the Egyptian Statue' are murky but it must have arrived in the house during the time of Anthony Chute (1691-1754) upon whose death the 1754 Inventory was taken. Anthony made many improvements at The Vyne and bought a certain number of important pieces of furniture, on the contrary he is not otherwise known to have been a collector of antiquities. (6) It is more probable that it was among the works of art acquired in Italy by dint of his younger brother, John (1701-76) a friend of Horace Walpole (1717-97) who lived abroad, mainly in Italy, between 1738 and 1746 (Fig. 2) (7) After his get back as heir apparent, John Chute acted as an artistic adviser to his brother. In 1753 he was urging him to purchase eleven plaster busts in London 'as advantageous as any we could have got through sending them on purpose from Italy', (8) and he may well have approveed other acquisitions. (9) No antiquities are recorded as being sent on the other hand the Roman inscriptions set into the walls of the Stone Gallery were a gift to John from Horace Walpole's older brother, Edward (1706-84), in about 1760 (10) It is regrettable, therefore, that, after more then sum of two units hundred years, the 'Egyptian figure' was allowed to leave The Vyne at least in part because its venerable association with the house was not entirely appreciated at the time. From the surviving correspondence, it appears that it was not notion a happy complement to the other fittings and furnishings of the house. Sir Charles Chute's executors were, therefore, encouraged to barter it to the British Museum in 1958 as part of a arrangement following the bequest, two years previously, of the house and its easy in minds to the National Trust. (11) The statue remains in the collections of the British Museum, scarcely recognisable, its lower parts having been comprehensively 'restored' in plaster--of Paris in about 1959 (12) However, at least the statue remains in a public collection in this political division and the Trust has newly obtained a remarkably convincing cast of it--minus the restorations--so as to get back in some form, Ramesses to his of advanced age home (Fig. 6). (13)

Egyptian antiquities are not unknown in British land houses, but the great majority of the mummies, statues and smaller particulars which remain in houses today are nineteenth-century imports, dating from an era when the phenomenon of the country-house curiosity museum was at its height, and the Victorian Grand Tour encompassed Egypt as well as France and Italy. a certain quantity of of these collections were large and important, like the assemblage of objects collected between 1815 and 1819 through William Bankes (d. 1855) at Kingston Lacy, Dorset, on the other hand most Egyptian objects were isolated curios. (14) Nor were they always accorded the regard their antiquity might have been wait fored to inspire: at Penrhyn Castle in Gwynedd for example, a fine basalt statue of Osiris serv as a useful doorstop in the Dining expanse (15) while at Kingston Lacy the granite sarcophagus of Amenope was rest abandoned in a garden rockery (16) on the other hand it is the presence of Egyptian facts particularly large-scale sculpture and mummies, in political division house collections in Britain in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries which relate tos us here. The following article attempts to deposit 'The Vyne Ramesses' back in its country-house context

Almost all the early Egyptian relics in England were brought back by the agency of travellers. George Sandys (1578-1644) (17) who was in Egypt in 1610 described in what way 'mummes' could 'be bought for dollars apeece at the Citie'. He failed to purchase one, but speaks of 'little originals of stone or metall; a certain quantity of of the shape of men with the heads of sheepe, haulkes, dogs, &c others of cats, beetles monkies and like like. Of these I brought away divers with me (18) Sandys, the son of Edwin Sandys, Archbishop of York, shared the same name as the family who had holded The Vyne since the early fourteenth hundred and who sold it to the Chute in 1653 It is tempting to associate 'The Vyne Ramesses' with this early visitor to Egypt particularly since we know that Sandys gave a certain quantity of of the little bronzes he gathered to John Tradescant's Museum at Lambeth. (19) However, Sandys' family came from Hawkshead in Lancashire, and any connexion with their Hampshire namesakes at The Vyne strike one as beings distant. (20) More significant is the fact there is no evidence to prompt that George Sandys did bestow this heavy and distinctive plastic art upon The Vyne, where its vicinity is unlikely to have gone unremarked for drawn out (21) Then as now, Egyptian artefacts were sufficiently unusual as to be valuable gifts. Charles I's queen Henrietta Maria (1609-69) gave a mummy, estimateed 'a great raritie', to Thomas Bushell (1594-1674) in 1635 and he proudly displayed it in the grotto he created at Enstone, near Woodstock in Oxfordshire. (22) John Aubrey saw it many years later, on the contrary noted that 'the dampness of the place has spoiled it with mouldinesse'. (23)