A large ceramic sculpture in white biscuit porcelain by Gille Jeune, depicting a young girl, seated upon a rock, looking downwards and to her right. She is naked but partly covers herself with a flimsy drapery, on which she is seated, and part of which she pulls up with her left hand to cover her right thigh, whilst the other end of the fabric entirely covers her head, and is held in place with the girl’s left hand. Signed on the rock, towards the back. The Parisian ceramicist known as Gille Jeune (French, 1798-1868) was born Jean-Baptiste Gille. He started his porcelain factory known as Gille Jeune in 1836, at 28, Rue du Paradis-Poissonnière (for Gille Jeune, see Plinval de Guillebon 2012, esp. pp. 257-60). Gille Jeune became one of the leading manufacturers of coloured biscuit porcelain, producing many figures copying or derived from 18th-century models. The firm took part in the 1851 Great Exhibition in London where it was awarded a Prize Medal, and also at the 1862 International Exhibition in London and the Paris Exhibition of 1867. A typical example of his work is the standing figure of a woman in fanciful eighteenth-century dress exhibited by Gille Jeune at the 1862 International Exhibition, now in the Victoria & Albert Museum (Inv. C.145-1988). After Gille’s death in 1868, the firm was acquired by one of his modellers, Charles Baury and changed its name to Vion & Baury. Alongside these figures, Gille Jeune made figures, both large and small statues in white biscuit ware, which in part capitalised on and were in competition with the Parian ware produced in Stoke-on-Trent by factories such as Copeland and Minton. As with Parian, these sometimes reproduced models by well-known sculptors, for example the figure of a dog called Musette, after a model by Albert-Ernest Carrier-Belleuse, in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York (Inv. 1977.44). Gille Jeune made a large number of often very fine portrait busts of well-known contemporary figures, such as the Emperor Napoleon III (1808-73) or the duc de Morny (1811-65) (Plinval de Guillebon 2012, p. 71, figs. 63-65). Among surviving examples of Gille Jeune’s larger scale ceramic sculptures are the five figures of the Seasons at Hughenden Manor, some of them bought for the gardens of the house in May 1864 (NT 429120). These are very close in concept and size to the figure at Cragside, which was probably also made in the 1860s, in the latter years of Gille Jeune’s activity. The rather bizarre application of the drapery to cover the child’s entire face must reflect the briefly fashionable concept of sculpted images of women dressed in diaphanous drapery and with their faces close veiled, so that the forms of face and body would show through. Although this conceit was pioneered in the eighteenth century by the Italian sculptors Antonio Corradini and Innocenzo Spinazzi, it was revived around the middle of the nineteenth century by the Italian sculptors Raffaele Monti (1818-81), who worked mainly in Britain, and Giovanni Strazza (1818-75). The model appears to be very rare; just one other version of the Cragside figure is currently known. Jeremy Warren April 2022

Provenance: Armstrong collection. Transferred by the Treasury to The National Trust in 1977 via the National Land Fund, aided by 3rd Baron Armstrong of Bamburgh and Cragside (1919 – 1987).

Text from the National Trust website

Object description
Type: Sculpture
Location: Cragside, Rothbury, Northumberland
Material: Biscuit, Marble, Wood, Parian
Artist: Gille Jeune (1798 – 1868)
Date: 1860-1868

Image Details
Date: 21 April 2026
Camera body: iPhone Xs
Lens: Wide Camera 26mm ƒ/1.8
Focal Length: 26mm
Aperture: ƒ/1.8
Shutter Speed: 1/50s
ISO: 250
Licensing: Image of a National Trust asset. This image cannot be licensed.

Provenance: Armstrong collection. Transferred by the Treasury to The National Trust in 1977 via the National Land Fund, aided by 3rd Baron Armstrong of Bamburgh and Cragside (1919 – 1987).

Text from the National Trust website

Object description
Type: Photographic print
Location: Cragside, Rothbury, Northumberland
Material: Photograph on paper
Artist: Unknown photographer
Date: Unknown

Image Details
Date: 21 April 2026
Camera body: iPhone Xs
Lens: Wide Camera 26mm ƒ/1.8
Focal Length: 26mm
Aperture: ƒ/1.8
Shutter Speed: 1/30s
ISO: 640
Licensing: Image of a National Trust asset. This image cannot be licensed.

Provenance: Armstrong collection. Transferred by the Treasury to The National Trust in 1977 via the National Land Fund, aided by 3rd Baron Armstrong of Bamburgh and Cragside (1919 – 1987).

Text from the National Trust website

Object description
Type: Photographic print
Location: Cragside, Rothbury, Northumberland
Material: Photograph on paper
Artist: Unknown photographer
Date: Unknown

Image Details
Date: 21 April 2026
Camera body: iPhone Xs
Lens: Wide Camera 26mm ƒ/1.8
Focal Length: 26mm
Aperture: ƒ/1.8
Shutter Speed: 1/22s
ISO: 800
Licensing: Image of a National Trust asset. This image cannot be licensed.

Provenance: Armstrong collection. Transferred by the Treasury to The National Trust in 1977 via the National Land Fund, aided by 3rd Baron Armstrong of Bamburgh and Cragside (1919 – 1987).

Marks and inscriptions: Bottom right: Aaron Penley / 1869 Mount: “Snowdon by Sunset” / AARON PENLEY / BORN 1807 / DIED / 1870

Text from the National Trust website

Object description
Type: Easel painting
Location: Cragside, Rothbury, Northumberland
Material: Watercolour on paper
Artist: Aaron Edwin Penley (1807-1870)
Date: 1869

Image Details
Date: 21 April 2026
Camera body: iPhone Xs
Lens: Wide Camera 26mm ƒ/1.8
Focal Length: 26mm
Aperture: ƒ/1.8
Shutter Speed: 1/33s
ISO: 400
Licensing: Image of a National Trust asset. This image cannot be licensed.

Oil painting on canvas, William John Montagu Watson-Armstrong, 2nd Baron Armstrong of Bamburgh and Cragside (1892-1972) by Mary Bernhard, signed and dated, botttom right: Bernhard 1973. A posthumous half-length portrait of an elderly man in a landscape, facing the viewer, holding a walking stick in his left hand. A view of Cragside can be seen in the middle distance.

Provenance: Armstrong collection. Transferred by the Treasury to The National Trust in 1977 via the National Land Fund, aided by 3rd Baron Armstrong of Bamburgh and Cragside (1919 – 1987).

Marks and inscriptions: Bottom right: Bernard 1973

Text from the National Trust website

Object description
Type: Easel painting
Location: Cragside, Rothbury, Northumberland
Material: Oil on canvas
Artist: Mary Bernhard (fl.1973)
Date: 1973

Image Details
Date: 21 April 2026
Camera body: iPhone Xs
Lens: Wide Camera 26mm ƒ/1.8
Focal Length: 26mm
Aperture: ƒ/1.8
Shutter Speed: 1/25s
ISO: 500
Licensing: Image of a National Trust asset. This image cannot be licensed.

Oil painting on canvas, Only an Orange Girl by Edward Patry RBA (London 1856 – 1940), monogrammed and dated, bottom left: E P 1885. A three-quarter-length picture of a young girl wearing a straw hat with a peacock’s feather, a torn white blouse and blue skirt, carrying a basket of oranges.

Provenance: Armstrong collection. Transferred by the Treasury to The National Trust in 1977 via the National Land Fund, aided by 3rd Baron Armstrong of Bamburgh and Cragside (1919 – 1987).

Marks and inscriptions: Bottom left: E P [in a monogram] 1885

Text from the National Trust website

Object description
Type: Easel painting
Location: Cragside, Rothbury, Northumberland
Material: Oil on canvas
Artist: Edward Patry RBA (1856 – 1940)
Date: 1885

Image Details
Date: 21 April 2026
Camera body: iPhone Xs
Lens: Telephoto Camera 52mm ƒ/2.4
Focal Length: 52mm
Aperture: ƒ/2.4
Shutter Speed: 1/33s
ISO: 500
Licensing: Image of a National Trust asset. This image cannot be licensed.

Oil painting on canvas, San Giorgio Maggiore and the Salute, Venice, with Fishing Craft of Chioggia and the Lagune, by Edward William Cooke RA (London 1811 – Groombridge 1880), 1852.

Provenance: Exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1853; sold by the artist to W. Bashall, Farington Park, Preston, in 1853; purchased by William George Armstrong, 1st Baron Armstrong of Cragside (1810-1900) from Agnew’s in 1869; sold at Christie’s on 24 June 1910, lot 49, when bought by Agnew’s; purchased by the National Trust for Cragside from Christie’s on 27 November 2002, lot 24.

Marks and inscriptions: Bottom right: COOKE. VENEZIA

Text from the National Trust website

Object description
Type: Easel painting
Location: Cragside, Rothbury, Northumberland
Material: Oil on canvas
Artist: Edward William Cooke (1811-1880)
Date: 1852

Image Details
Date: 21 April 2026
Camera body: iPhone Xs
Lens: Telephoto Camera 52mm ƒ/2.4
Focal Length: 52mm
Aperture: ƒ/2.4
Shutter Speed: 1/33s
ISO: 640
Licensing: Image of a National Trust asset. This image cannot be licensed.

Provenance: Armstrong collection. Transferred by the Treasury to The National Trust in 1977 via the National Land Fund, aided by 3rd Baron Armstrong of Bamburgh and Cragside (1919 – 1987).

Marks and inscriptions: Bottom right: Jas DANBY / 1855

Text from the National Trust website

Object description
Type: Easel painting
Location: Cragside, Rothbury, Northumberland
Material: Oil on canvas
Artist: James Francis Danby (1816-1875)
Date: 1852

Image Details
Date: 21 April 2026
Camera body: iPhone Xs
Lens: Telephoto Camera 52mm ƒ/2.4
Focal Length: 52mm
Aperture: ƒ/2.4
Shutter Speed: 1/25s
ISO: 400
Licensing: Image of a National Trust asset. This image cannot be licensed.

A marble figure of a naked crouching woman, depicted as if in the act of bathing. She almost kneels, her right thigh pressed upon her leg which is raised just above the ground, whilst her left leg is raised higher. The woman twists her body to her right and raises her right arm, so that her hand hovers over her head; her left arm passes across her front, with the hand likewise held just above the surface of the woman’s skin. Her hair is elaborately dressed. On an integral marble base. The sculpture essentially copies a bronze statuette of a bathing woman by the Italo-Flemish sculptor Giovanni Bologna (Giambologna). Born in Flanders, Giambologna spent almost the whole of his career in Florence, where he worked as court sculptor to the Medici dukes, making sculptures in a range of materials and sizes. Giambologna is best known for the small bronze sculptures which he was able, in his efficient and highly productive workshop, to make in multiple versions. His bronzes were sent by the Medici as diplomatic gifts to courts across Europe, further helping to cement Giambologna’s international reputation. One of the themes that preoccupied the sculptor throughout his career was the figure of a bathing woman, of which he made both standing and crouching models. Two types of crouching woman are known through bronze versions, one larger and the other smaller (Charles Avery and Anthony Radcliffe (eds.), Giambologna 1529–1608: Sculptor to the Medici (Royal Scottish Museum, Edinburgh and Victoria and Albert Museum, London), London 1978, nos. 19-22). The Cragside figure is partly based on Giambologna’s larger model, the best version of which is the signed bronze in the Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence, from the Medici collections. The head with its elaborately dressed hair, the upper torso and the gestures of the arms all derive from Giambologna. However, in the Cragside figure the position of the woman has been reversed so that she faces to the right, making the lower part of the sculpture much closer to the antique source for Giambologna’s figure, a once celebrated composition of Aphrodite Crouching by the third century B.C. Greek sculptor Doidalsas. The original is long lost, but numerous copies of this influential sculpture were known from the Renaissance onwards, including the so-called Lely Venus in the Royal Collection (on long-term loan to the British Museum). The somewhat meaningless gesture with the woman’s left hand in the Cragside sculpture comes from the fact that the towel that the woman in Giambologna’s bronze model uses to dry herself has here been omitted. The sculpture, which perhaps was made in Italy, fits very well within its niche on the staircase at Cragside, so it seems entirely possible that it was commissioned for this position, in which the woman looks across towards John Bell’s Daughter of Eve. Jeremy Warren March 2022

Provenance: Armstrong collection. Transferred by the Treasury to The National Trust in 1977 via the National Land Fund, aided by 3rd Baron Armstrong of Bamburgh and Cragside (1919 – 1987).

Text from the National Trust website

Object description
Type: Sculpture
Location: Cragside, Rothbury, Northumberland
Material: Marble
Artist: after Doidalsas of Bithynia
Date: c. 1850-1875

Image Details
Date: 21 April 2026
Camera body: iPhone Xs
Lens: Wide Camera 26mm ƒ/1.8
Focal Length: 26mm
Aperture: ƒ/1.8
Shutter Speed: 1/60s
ISO: 100
Licensing: Image of a National Trust asset. This image cannot be licensed.

A bronze statuette of Mercury, the god of speed, commerce and travellers. Mercury is depicted naked except for his hat of a type known as petasos, to which are attached small wings. A small wing also grows out of each of Mercury’s ankles. He flies through the air, his left foot balanced on a stream of wind emerging from the mouth of a zephyr (wind god), his right leg raised behind him, his left hand cradling his caduceus or herald’s wand, formed from a winged staff around which are entwined two serpents. He points the finger of his raised right hand into the air, towards the heavens. A fig leaf hides Mercury’s genitals. The inscription ‘J Boulogne’ is incised into the throat of the zephyr. Mounted on a circular bronze base, with moulded sides, which is in turn mounted upon a yellow marble socle, the central stem of which is ringed by a bronze frieze featuring two scenes, one of a putto sculpting a portrait bust surrounded by instruments of the arts, the other with another putto drawing a torso, derived from designs by Carle van Loo (1705-1765). A pair to a figure of Fortuna, goddess of Chance (NT 1231007). Giambologna’s Mercury is an iconic work of art. Even if most people today are unlikely to be aware of its origins and its author, it is nevertheless probably the only Renaissance bronze sculpture still instantly recognizable as a composition, owing to its widespread use as a symbol for communication, for example in stamps and company logos. It is Giambologna’s most famous work, the one which sealed his professional success at the Medici court in Florence. The Mercury is also the summation of Giambologna’s preoccupation as a modeller with creating sculpted figures built around a strong vertical axis. It is a masterpiece of technological achievement, the bronze figure balanced, apparently effortlessly, on a single point, making it appear as if Mercury is bursting upwards as he hurtles through the air. Between the early 1560s and the late 1580s Giambologna made five slightly varied versions of this extraordinary figure, knowledge of which was further disseminated through innumerable copies which continue to be made to this day. The great majority of copies, notably almost all the many made in nineteenth-century foundries, were based on the life-size bronze Mercury made by Giambologna around 1580 and sent from Florence sent to the Villa Medici in Rome, where it was part of a fountain in the gardens, remaining in Rome until its return to Florence in 1780. Today it is in the Museo Nazionale del Bargello. This is one of two examples of the Mercury at Cragside. Both are mass-produced products of French foundries and were made in the second half of the nineteenth century, however the other version (NT 1228445) is slightly cruder as a cast. It can well be imagined that Sir William Armstrong, whose businesses depended on technical innovation and making maximum use of the properties of metals, might have especially admired this composition and the way in which the heavy bronze figure balances perfectly on a single point. The pairing of Mercury with a figure of Fortuna, the goddess of chance, is found mainly in the nineteenth century, but occasionally earlier. In the 1670s, full-size lead figures of Mercury and Fortune after Giambologna were installed in the gardens at Ham House (for modern copies at Ham, NT 1140391-92). Like Mercury, Fortune is essentially a creature of the air, blown hither and thither, and she was often depicted balancing on a sphere, representing the world. Some of the nineteenth-century pairings use Giambologna’s own model for the Fortuna, but there are also frequent instances of models by other sculptors, as in the example at Cragside. The bronze reliefs that adorn the socles of the Mercury and Fortuna are allegories of sculpture and drawing, showing small boys (putti) engaged in these activities. They are distantly derived from a set of four celebrated paintings of Allegories of the Arts made by Carle van Loo (1705-65) for the great patron Madame de Pompadour (Xavier Salmon, ed, Madame de Pompadour et les Arts, exh. cat., Musées nationaux de Versailles et de Trianon, Paris 2002, nos. 51-54), which depict young children engaged in the arts of painting, sculpture, architecture and music. The main design on the bronze reliefs on the Cragside bronzes is derived from the allegory of sculpture. Van Loo’s paintings were much copied and also reproduced in the form of prints, so the images were easily accessible. The pairing of Mercury and Fortuna on these distinctive socles is not uncommon, with examples appearing relatively frequently on the art market (for example, Bonham’s Edinburgh, 22 February 2017, lot 285). There are often however variations in the female companion figures, and in the attributes carried by both Mercury and Fortuna. Jeremy Warren March 2022

Provenance: Armstrong collection. Transferred by the Treasury to The National Trust in 1977 via the National Land Fund, aided by 3rd Baron Armstrong of Bamburgh and Cragside (1919 – 1987).

Text from the National Trust website

Object description
Type: Sculpture
Location: Cragside, Rothbury, Northumberland
Material: Bronze
Artist: after Giambologna (1529-1608)
Date: c. 1850-1900

Image Details
Date: 21 April 2026
Camera body: iPhone Xs
Lens: Wide Camera 26mm ƒ/1.8
Focal Length: 26mm
Aperture: ƒ/1.8
Shutter Speed: 1/25s
ISO: 320
Licensing: Image of a National Trust asset. This image cannot be licensed.