A Captured Carriage – Paintings from the Wellington Collection

There is currently a display of paintings from the Wellington Collection in Lord Mansfield’s Dressing Room until mid-November 2022.

On the battlefield of Vitoria in northern Spain in June 1813, the Duke of Wellington captured the carriage of Joseph Bonaparte. In the carriage, Wellington’s soldiers discovered more than 200 paintings and drawings. They had been seized from the Spanish royal collection by Bonaparte.

Wellington made 3 attempts to return the paintings to the Spanish king, Ferdinand IV, all were refused, and the paintings became the foundation of the Wellington Collection at Apsley House.

A selection can now be viewed at Kenwood, alongside works acquired by Wellington in the years after the Napoleonic Wars.

Image: The Death of Cleopatra by Johann George Platzer (1704-61) (detail)

April 2022