Duff House: A haven for art lovers falls on harder times

By Stephen McGinty
Published on Tuesday 24 January 2012 06:34

It’s rich in history and a valuable asset for art lovers in the North-east, but cuts and falling visitor numbers mean control of Duff House is to move from the local council to a national body, writes Stephen McGinty

DUFF House, which sits in the rolling countryside of Banff, has been witness to a disagreement or two down through the centuries. William Duff, who hired William Adam to build the grandest classical country house in Scotland, soon fell out with his architect over costs and refused to move into his masterpiece. Instead, it was left to the Earl’s son, James Duff, to become the first resident, and the arguments he had with his wife, Lady Dorothea Sinclair, were legion. With his affections already lavished on his mistress, (one of his mother’s servants, with whom he had three children), Duff had little time for his anxious young wife who, at one point, – in the room now known as the Long Gallery – tried to shoot him with a pistol.

Today, while no-one has yet reached for a sidearm, the fate of Duff House is now the subject of animated discussion. Since 1992, the grand country house has been, some would say, a forgotten outpost of the National Galleries of Scotland. A rich and dramatic architectural jewel on whose walls are displayed paintings, sketches and sculptures liberated from the organisation’s Edinburgh vaults for the enjoyment of a wider audience than the residents of the central belt.

Yet with visitor numbers falling and Aberdeenshire Council forced to cut its budget by £139,000, from £415,000 to £276,000, it now looks set to be handed over to Historic Scotland, who are expected to take over the running of Duff House from April. So is the property an annoying parcel the council is only too glad to pass on? Or an architectural gem that hasn’t quite caught the light yet?

John Leighton, the director general of the National Galleries of Scotland, is anxious to continue to stock Duff House with fine art, including the annual masterpieces that are loaned in time for the summer tourist season. Last year The Vale of Dedham, painted by John Constable in 1828, was on display in the drawing room, while over the past 16 years visitors have been drawn to works by Botticelli, Titian and Rembrandt.

Leighton describes Duff House as “among the most important cultural” assets in the North-east of Scotland and that “the operational changes that are under discussion” are designed to “enhance the potential impact of Duff House for local, regional and tourist audiences”.

In the past six years the annual number of visitors to Duff House has dropped sharply, from 33,553 in 2005/6 to 23,567 in 2010/11, a collapse of almost 30 per cent, and yet the property has much to offer including portraits by Allan Ramsay, Raeburn, Gainsborough and El Greco, as well as furniture by Chippendale, while outside there are miles of glorious parkland, as well as access to sandy beaches and the River Deveron.

In the opinion of John Cox, the independent councillor for Banff and District, Duff House should be designed and marketed, not as an adjunct to the art of Edinburgh, but as a unique historical attraction, that “it shouldn’t be an outstation for the National Galleries”.

He says: “My main issue, in terms of Duff House, is that it should be a unique visitor attraction for the North-east of Scotland, and any change in the management doesn’t address that. At the end of the day it is taxpayers’ money that will be used, whether it comes out of the council or Historic Scotland.

“What is vitally important is that a fresh look is taken at the operation of Duff House and that all the constraints are lifted. We should start with a blank sheet and ask what type of visitor attraction it should be, to ensure that 90 per cent of the interest comes from the local community.”

History stalks the corridors of Duff House. After the second Earl, who did not take kindly to being threatened with a loaded pistol, sought a legal separation, the house was passed to his eldest nephew in 1811.

In 1846, at just 17, Lady Agnes Hay, a daughter of the Earl of Errol married James Duff and came to live in the house. The couple had six children, five daughters and a son, and it was from this line that the author and diplomat, Sir Duff Cooper, and the current Prime Minister, David Cameron, are all descended.

The last Duff to live in the house was Alexander Duff, the 6th Earl, who married the eldest grand-daughter of Queen Victoria, who was said to have greatly approved of the match. Unfortunately Alexander Duff came to an unfortunate end, In 1911 the family were shipwrecked while on route to Egypt for a winter holiday, as was fashionable at the time. During the accident he lent his dressing gown to a fellow passenger, but later caught pneumonia and died ten days later.

Between 1913 and 1923, the house was let out as a private hospital, and during the Second World War it housed prisoners of war. It fell into ruin in the 1950s before eventually being secured for the nation. In 1992, the decision was made to reopen the house as a gallery – Historic Scotland would own the building and Aberdeenshire Council agreed to meet the running costs, while the National Galleries of Scotland, then under the control of Sir Timothy Clifford, would furnish the walls. For three years Historic Scotland researched the history of the house, took scrapings of the existing paint for analysis and set about a painstaking process of restoration of the original interiors.

While Duff House had its own collection of art and furniture, not to mention an impressive library of 4,000 volumes, the National Galleries of Scotland supplied many fine paintings in time for the opening by Prince Charles in 1995, and has continued to lend more over the years.

In the past three years 82 works of art, sketches and sculptures have been loaned to the property. Among the recent arrivals at Duff House is an impressive portrait of John Campbell, 4th Duke of Argyll by Thomas Gainsborough, dated 1767, and William Etty’s enormous 19th-century canvas, The Combat, which is designed to symbolise the “beauty of mercy”. For many, however, the finest painting in the house is St Jerome in Penitence by El Greco, dated 1595 -1600.

For Duncan Macmillan, The Scotsman’s art critic, the house continues to have an important role: “Duff House is a good thing. All outstations of the National Galleries of Scotland are, and it was one of the first.

“It is not an ideal exhibition space, but it is a grand building and historically important with no other obvious use. Paradoxically it was because it is a grand building that it appealed to Tim Clifford. He liked art best in stately homes.

“Duff is only half a stately home (it was never finished) but even half of one for Tim was better than no stately home at all. Nor does that invalidate the virtue of sending major works there from the NGS. It certainly gets art to parts that are not otherwise reached.

“The one major constraint on freedom of access to publicly owned work is geography, the problem of distance. The NGS is committed to try to solve that and Duff House is part of the solution.”

Peter Johnston, chairman of the Friends of Duff House says: “We are pleased. Historic Scotland has resources that Aberdeenshire Council did not and what we would like to see in the future is a mix of direction and commercial aptitude. We do appreciate the loan of paintings from the National Galleries of Scotland, although it would be good if they could increase the frequency of the loan although I appreciate there are considerable costs involved. I would like to see a combination of the art gallery and, perhaps, a permanent exhibition about the history of the house, particularly the experiences during the Second World War.”

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daveatclola

Tuesday, January 10, 2012 at 04:40 PM

The folks concerned have to try harder. The national gallery et al should change the artifacts every year, they should put some of the great stuff they have in the dungeons in edinburgh that nobody has seen the light of in 50 years, as much as possible should be in 'all these out of the way places' if that lot in Edinburgh has nowehere to exibit all they wish to show, use places like Duff house, then Advertise what you have done. its a cracking location, certainly out of the way, right next to a fine golf course, nice character town of Banff. How can you lose. JUST DO IT RIGHT

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