Munro

Hugh Andrew Johnstone Munro of Novar (? - 1865) was a collector and amateur artist who inherited substantial estates in Inverness. Building up a notable collection of paintings, both Old Master and modern, he had made the acquaintance of Turner by 1826, and bought his first oil, Venus and Adonis ( Wilton P150) in 1830. Munro sponsored the artist's trip to Venice in 1833, and in 1836 they visited the Alps together, Turner presenting his patron with a sketchbook. Turner made Munro an executor of his will in 1849.

His collection of Turner 's work eventually comprised some fourteen oils and over a hundred watercolours. These included many of the illustrations to Sir Walter Scott and nearly thirty of the England and Wales series. He was a successful rival to the Ruskins in obtaining some of the finest Swiss watercolours offered by Turner to his closest patrons on commission in the early 1840s. But like all shrewd collectors, he was not averse to improving his holding by sale or swap: he passed the Red Rigi (1842, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne; Wilton 1525) to Ruskin in 1846, and let him have the Fluelen (1845, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven; Wilton 1541) in exchange for two others.

Munro's collection was 'to a limited extent available to the public' ( Turner Studies, vol.5, no.2, Winter 1985, p.15), and was certainly accessible to Ruskin, who recorded a visit in his diary on 13 April 1844: 'Into town to see Munro's collection, and made myself very unhappy for two of them - the Splügen and Zurich. Would give the world for them; I shall have them some time however if I live.' Indeed, Ruskin did live to own The Splügen Pass (1842, Private Collection; Wilton 1523) - bought for him by friends in 1878 - as well as more than a dozen other watercolours that had belonged to Munro, including several England and Wales subjects.

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