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By Root 1077 0

works of art should have been at the very forefront of the Ambassador’s mind, and therefore prominent in the day-to-day activities of his accompanying Dutch party. In early February 1615, just before Carleton had been recalled from his post as Resident English Ambassador to Venice to take up the English Residency at The Hague, he had borrowed an embarrassingly large sum of money from the Protestant merchant banker of Italian extraction Philip Burlamachi (whose banking activities were largely based in London and Antwerp) to allow him to purchase a magnificent private collection of Italian paintings and antiquities. Carleton had stood personal guarantor for the safe arrival of the precious consignment – should anything happen to it before delivery, he would be responsible for repaying the bankers.

Carleton referred to the affair of the Venetian art purchase as a ‘mischance’, and such it became shortly after it was made. The collection he had acquired was indeed a fine one, consisting of Italian paintings by known ‘masters’, among them Tintoretto, Titian, Veronese and Bassano, and over ninety fine antique statues of various types and sizes, acquired via the agency of the Flemish dealer and fixer Daniel Nys (or Nice). It was Carleton’s intention to offer this pre-eminent collection to James I’s leading favourite, the Earl of Somerset – a significant art collector, who might be expected to jump at the chance of such an acquisition, and reward Carleton handsomely, over and above the purchase price.

Building up a notable private collection of Italian art, and displaying it in a purpose-built gallery, was much in vogue at the English court in the early decades of the seventeenth century.25 Carleton’s hope was that by making this important art acquisition (purchased as a complete collection from the estate of a deceased or financially embarrassed collector), he would attract Somerset’s attention and gratitude, and thereby secure the lucrative promotion he desired for himself at the English court. The paintings were shipped from Venice to London on 25 April 1615. The antiquities followed shortly afterwards, by separate shipment.

By the time the paintings and the twenty-nine cases of sculpture arrived in London, however, the Earl of Somerset had been disgraced, and was no longer in any position to concern himself with art acquisitions. In fact, even as Carleton was undertaking the purchase in Venice, at home, Somerset was already under suspicion, with his wife Frances, of conspiring to murder Sir Thomas Overbury. The couple were arrested on 17 October 1615, tried, imprisoned and permanently barred from royal favour.

Somerset’s personal possessions were immediately confiscated by the Crown, and there was some danger that Carleton’s newly arrived artworks, just unpacked, and sitting in Somerset’s quarters at Whitehall, would be seized by the King and added to his own collection, even though technically they still belonged to Carleton. Carleton – by now in post at The Hague – hurriedly arranged for the paintings to be identified as technically his, and offered for sale in London. Entering the ‘Bowling ally’ in Somerset’s apartments, Carleton’s agents marked his pictures with a cross, excluding them from the inventory of possessions seized by the King. While Carleton looked for another buyer, the pictures were moved to the home of a merchant who handled Daniel Nys’ accounts in London. Disposing of the paintings turned out to be a comparatively straightforward matter. Not only was the Earl of Arundel a leading collector, but he had been personally involved in advising Carleton over the original Venetian purchase – these were works of art entirely to his own taste. Arundel agreed to take possession of almost all the paintings. On 9 April 1616, two years before the visit on which Constantijn Huygens senior accompanied him, Carleton’s agent informed Carleton:

The L. Arundel is nowe returned & this day I gave my attendance on him, who I perceaved is passing desirous to deale for the halfe of them [the paintings], telling me that my L.