On the trail of the pictures

The paintings from the Truchsessian Gallery were auctioned off by the London auction house Skinner & Dyke on three set dates between March and May 1806. A total of 676 works went under the hammer, fetching a total of £8,201. There is no record of who exactly the buyers were, so it remains anonymous into whose hands the paintings fell. As a result, the once large collection was scattered. The auction figures are taken from a handwritten list of paintings, which records estimated prices, individual sales prices, and the prices actually achieved at auction.

Individual sales made before the auction also make it difficult to trace many of the paintings. In 1806, a fire broke out in the warehouse where the remaining, unsold paintings were stored, destroying the rest of the collection. As a result, very few of the nearly 1,400 works from the Wurzach picture gallery can be found in public collections today.

Another obstacle to reconstructing the fragmented collection is the lack of systematic art-historical research on the Truchsessian Gallery. Many works have been inaccurately or incorrectly identified in the count's catalog. Information on provenance is also often missing or only indicates the respective dealer and price in purchase documents. All this makes it very difficult for researchers today to trace the history and whereabouts of the Truchsessen paintings accurately. Whether the high estimates from Vienna and Dresden or Sir Thomas Lawrence's assessment as a gallery of fakes were correct can no longer be answered with certainty. Despite unanswered questions about the authenticity of the works, the Truchsessian Gallery is an exciting example of the emergence of market mechanisms in the European art market. At the same time, it can be classified as an important testimony to the professionalization of art history in the art trade and exhibition business.

Continue reading here: The Wurzach Altar – an extraordinary sale

Citation: Nikolas Maisch, On the Trail of the Paintings, in: art&market. The Truchsessen Gallery in London and the English Art Market around 1800, URL: [...], as of June 2, 2025.