The forgotten Burrell: Uncovering the sibling effect on the Burrell Collection

A vase owned by Mary Burrell – youngest sister of the Glasgow art collector William Burrell – goes under the hammer next week. But who was the real Mary, and how much influence on the famous Burrell Collection might she have had, asks Lee Randall

IT IS regarded as one of the greatest collections of art amassed by one man. The Burrell Collection in Glasgow’s Pollok Park has more than 8,000 works, including medieval art, tapestries, stained glass and English oak furniture. The idisyncratic collection also boasts paintings by Cezanne and Degas, an important collection of Islamic art, and modern sculpture, including works by Epstein and Rodin. Sir William Burrell’s obsession with collection has made the Burrell name famous the world over. But the auction of a vase later this month has underlined that Sir William was not the only member of the Burrell family who was a keen collector of art and antiques, and has prompted renewed interested in the role of Mary Burrell, a largely forgotten part of the Burrell Collection’s story.

The striking vase from the Kanghxi era (1662-1722) once belonged to Mary Burrell (1873-1964), the youngest – and favourite – sister of William Burrell. From Mary, the vase passed to her daughter, Ruth MacKenzie, who died in July, aged 101.

William, it seems, had help building his collection from his entire family, and notably, from Mary. Curiosity piqued, I set out to discover more about her, though that proved easier said than done. William was famously publicity shy, and even less is known about Mary, especially now that so many of those who knew her have passed on. I was lucky enough to speak to Mrs Mona Dickinson, Mary’s granddaughter, and was greatly assisted by the loan of Richard Marks’s book, Burrell, A Portrait of a Collector, from Ian Glennie, Bonham’s head of Asian Art.

Mary was the last of nine children born to Isabella (née Guthrie) and William Burrell. Mrs Dickinson reads off their names to me: “George, Adam, William, Elizabeth, Henry, Janet, Isobel, Duncan, and Mary.” Not all the children survived childhood.

The Burrell family originated in Northumberland. Mrs Dickinson says: “George, born in 1767, was a gambler. He got through his land in Northumberland, and his wife’s fortune, at which point they moved to Glasgow. They started in a fairly small way and gradually built up a shipping company of which, as far as I understand, George and William, two generations later, were the mainsprings.”

According to Marks, although the business was established by the time of William’s birth, in 1861, the family was far from rich and did not indulge in many luxuries.

In Andrew Hannah’s obituary of William Burrell for The Scotsman, he credits Isabella with sparking her son’s interest in the arts, encouraging him to understand the fundamentals of great art, and then to acquire it. It’s on record that Isabella and other members of the family accompanied William on buying expeditions on the Continent, and bought things on his behalf when travelling without him. The matriarch of this close-knit family certainly sounds formidable. Marks writes: “She was a strong, even stern personality… [and] William was devoted to her.”

Mrs Dickinson recalls: “They went to the south of Spain and went to hear gypsy singing and dancing at Seville, and all that sort of thing, which must have been quite a journey in the late 1800s. That was where Mary came across a whole lot of Hispano-Moresque plates. They were very sparing with telegrams, because it cost quite a lot per word, so she sent a telegram to brother William, saying, ‘Much Hispano-Moresque. Mary’ It arrived in Scotland saying, ‘Mucho Hispano-Moresco. Maria’. He was even more economical; he just sent a telegram back saying, ‘Buy. William.’ The dishes came home in her hat box, and are not in the Burrell collection.”

So she had a habit of keeping her eyes peeled on William’s behalf? “Oh yes, and to buy things for herself. She had really just pocket money compared to him, so we’re wondering about the two vases. There’s the one in the Burrell, and the one that’s up for sale. She got the slightly chipped one because it was cheaper and he got the better one, but history, unfortunately, doesn’t relate [more].”

Like her brother, Mary’s taste was catholic, and she was a rabid collector. “She collected everything from English Delft plates to furniture to jade to silver, pewter, wonderful chairs, anything.”

Mary either grew up in the city centre, at the family’s tenement flat at 30 Willowbank Street, or just outside Glasgow city limits, in Bowling, where they lived until around 1885, when William Burrell Snr died.

Mrs Dickinson recalls that there was a home in Great Western Terrace, but Burrell didn’t move there until 1901, leaving his mother in the family home at 4 Devonshire Gardens.

“I have no idea what Mary’s education was,” says Dickinson, “but she knew an awful lot about art and china.” She laughs when asked if her grandmother went to university. “Oh lord no! People didn’t, in those days. Especially women.”

According to Marks: “Little can be said of the girls, with the exception of Mary, the youngest. She appears to have been William’s favourite sister and grew up to be a most attractive young woman, inheriting her mother’s bright blue eyes… She was described in her twenties by William’s best friend the rising Scottish architect Robert Lorimer as pleasant and intelligent, though he was put off as a suitor by her Glasgow accent.”

Mrs Dickinson says: “She was very beautiful, and around 5ft 4in (1m 62cm), not very tall. Very fine boned, her face was, when I knew her, thin but lovely, still.”

Like her mother, she had a formidable personality. “She was feisty and fun to be around and didn’t suffer fools gladly. She was quite polite, but not forthcoming. She had a very quick wit. She could size people up fairly fast. I remember once she took me into an antique shop in St Andrews – anywhere we went, we went into the antique shops – and said, ‘Do you like that,’ pointing at a pink shiny thing covered in flowers. I remember thinking, ‘I’ve never seen anything like that! I don’t know what she’s after.’ Then she said, ‘Just testing your taste!’ It was a particularly ghastly, enormous bit of pink china.”

Mary travelled even as a teenager. Marks reprints part of a letter from William, then 28, to his sister Isabella, who was staying with a family in Paris. It’s dated 26 January, 1890, by which time he was the de facto head of the family, following his father’s death and George’s marriage:

“Mother … feels your and Mary’s absence very much … Mary wrote me recently that a youth at Lausanne had sent her his card and a box of sweets and that she very properly immediately returned both. I consider this was worse than cheeky on his part and am glad she had the good sense to snub him as she did. Characters like that abound everywhere and it behoves every young girl to be on her guard. I can only hope that God will preserve you both from all such. When you are away from your Mothers [sic] care you cannot be too careful yourself…”

Around the time of Mary’s 21st, in 1884, William, who had befriended the Glasgow Boys, commissioned John Lavery to paint Mary’s portrait. Finished the following year, it hangs in the Burrell Collection to this day.

The family travelled together, in various configurations, and their entourage often included such friends as the architect Robert Lorimer, who became close with William when both men were in their thirties. Another travelling companion was James Alexander Ralston Mitchell, a member of the family-owned shipping firm of Edminston and Mitchell. The Mitchells were themselves great collectors, says Vivien Hamilton, the Glasgow Museums Research Manager.

In 1898 Burrell led a tour through Holland, visiting Flushing, Haarlem, Rotterdam and Amsterdam, returning via Antwerp. In Amsterdam Burrell made the rounds of the antiques shops. In a letter describing the trip Lorimer wrote: “The party consisted of Burrell … his mother, a fine old Trojan of 64, his two sisters and a friend of Burrell’s called Mitchell, an extremely nice young chap. ”

Two years later, in September, the band of travellers set out for Rothenburg-ob-der Tauber, in Germany. There, Mitchell proposed, prompting Lorimer to note: “The moonlight at Rothenberg proved too much for them.”

That moment certainly entered family lore. Mrs Dickinson says: “It was a very beautiful moonlit night and the result was an engagement. We went to see the place where they actually got engaged, my mother and I. Mum had heard about it from her mother. There it was, up in the castle. He found a good romantic spot to do it.”

Marks records that William’s wedding presents to his beloved 28-year-old sister included a diamond necklet, a mother-of-pearl fan and silver dishes. Mrs Dickinson recalls that her grandparents returned to London from their honeymoon in the middle of Queen Victoria’s funeral procession.

It was a happy marriage that produced five children. Ralston Mitchell prospered in the family business, importing timber, so he was able to accommodate his wife’s passion for collecting. In the 1920s, the family moved out of Glasgow to a house called Perceton, near Irvine, in Ayrshire.

“It was nice and big, so Mary had lots of scope for filling it up with antiques, which she did,” says Mrs Dickinson. “I used to stay there quite a bit as a child. She had the most wonderful things. We were so lucky, we roamed around the house and mercifully did no damage. She never warned us away from anything. There were a great pair of Chinese vases that stood on either side of the door to the drawing room and they survived all the grandchildren. Then, when she was very old, she tripped, and one of them didn’t survive that. It was so sad for her.

“She had very good taste and a wonderful eye for spotting antiques. She had a lovely time when my parents got engaged. She shot round all the antique shops buying up things, and anyone who asked what [the couple] would like for their wedding, she said, ‘Oh funnily enough I’ve just the thing,’ so they got a very well furnished house.”

She may well have dipped into her own collections, to fill in any gaps. A bit of research on the part of Vivien Hamilton reveals that when the Glasgow School of Art opened, in December of 1899, the glass cases of the school’s museum were filled by the Misses Burrell – which surely refers to Mary and her surviving sister, and reaffirms the picture of an entire family bitten by the collecting bug. We know that George and William swapped art, so who’s to say that Mary didn’t swap with them, as well?

Sadly, and for reasons that remain unremembered, William and Mary fell out late in their lives. It’s worth noting that he also fell out with his close friend Lorimer, over their distinctly different visions for Hutton Castle, and that Marks describes a man who didn’t mellow with age, but became noticeably more cantankerous.

“I don’t know what caused the falling out with Mary,” says Mrs Dickinson. “The distance apart didn’t help much. But for Granny and Granddad’s golden wedding, in the early 1950s, he sent a lovely early Bible in gold book end bindings, which had pride of place for a very long time. I think it was something of a rapprochement.”

Perhaps William knew time was running out? “Yes. He lived on to about 95, and died in 1958. A tough old chap,” concludes Mrs Dickinson.

So how important was Mary Burrell, in helping to build her brother’s magnificent collection? In 1997, at the height of the family’s battle with Julian Spaulding over the loan of pieces to museums outside of the UK, Ruth Mackenzie recalled: “I used to visit Uncle William at Hutton Castle with my mother. They built up quite a bit of the collection together while travelling on the continent. They used to hunt as a pair.”

Perhaps I, too, have had my head turned with romantic notions, but I’m rather taken by the idea that Mary might be the unsung heroine of the Burrell Collection. I hope whoever places the winning bid on her homely vase will spare this intriguing lady a thought each time they pause to admire it.

• Mary Burrell’s vase is part of the Asian Art auction at Bonhams, 22 Queen Street, Edinburgh. The auction commences at 11am. Viewing: 20 November, 1-4pm; 21-23 November, 10-4pm, and 24 November, 9 am to 10:30 am, prior to sale. For more information ring: 0131-225 2266 or visit www.bonhams.com/edinburgh