Room 5
Patron and Collector
Great good is to be done by encouraging the private possession of pictures

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Before Ruskin became a critic, he was a connoisseur. He and his father, the wealthy sherry importer John James Ruskin, built up a collection of some 250 works, by nearly fifty different artists. As members of the rising middle class, they followed the new taste for buying watercolours by contemporary English artists. Through personal contact with such painters, notably Turner, they became patrons as well as collectors of contemporary art when they commissioned such works as Goldau (no.111).

 
Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1828-1882
Paolo and Francesca da Rimini 1855
© Tate Gallery

This practical form of criticism formed an important part of the young Ruskin's training. As he became wealthier, he was able to buy Old Masters, including works by Verocchio (no.125), Catena (no.126) and the School of Botticelli (no.127). When he became established as a critic he used his wealth to support the artists he favoured, notably Dante Gabriel Rossetti (nos.117,118,119), Elizabeth Siddal (nos.115,116) and Edward Burne-Jones (nos.122,123,124). Both Ruskin and the artists he supported found that such friendships were difficult to sustain, as in the case of Rossetti (no.118). All the works in this room come from the family collection, or were created as a result of the Ruskins' patronage.