SIR HERBERT COOK

OBITUARIES

SIR HERBERT COOK - A tribute to the memory of the late Sir Herbert Cook - whose death, at the age of seventy, after a long and painful illness took place on May 4th - should on no account be absent from these columns. His ties with THE BURLINGTON MAGAZINE were close and numerous : he belonged, indeed, to the small group of art lovers through whose efforts this journal was founded thirty-six years ago ; he always remained a good friend of this magazine, a fact of which his membership of our Consultative Commottee was appropriately symbolic ; and for many years he was a frrquent and valued contributor to these pages. Having acknowledged this, we can but give a slight outline of the incessant activities which, in the days of his health, he also, in other fields, devoted to the furthering of the study of the art of the past ; particularly memorable and fruitful was his work as organizer of many loan exhibitions at the Burlington Fine Arts Club, his Catalogue of the Milanse Exihibition in 1899 remaining to this day an extremely valuable collection of material. As heir to the Doughty House collection, it is perhaps inevitable that his activities as a collector should tend to be eclipsed by those of his grandfather ; but many of his own additions to the family collection were of an importance which it is as well here to emphasize - we will only mention two of them, the Schiavona by Titian from the Crespi collection at Milan, and the Portrait of Titus as a Boy by Rembrandt, whose departure from Althorp for America was prevented by Sir Herbert's prompt action.

The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs, Vol. 74, No. 435 (Jun., 1939), p. 295

Monserrate, 1836

We rode on to Montserrat, the remains of a villa, built by Mr. Beckford many years ago. The ruinous state of that fairy dwelling was noticed by Lord Byron in 1809, and since that time it has become still more desolate. The roof, then entire, has since very much fallen in, and the Avails are in many parts a heap of ruins. The entrance opens into an octagonal hall, terminated by a circular apartment, which looks over a lengthened flat to the distant breakers. There is also the shell remaining of a fine apartment, perhaps the library, which commands as rich a view of forest scenery as can well be conceived. The general effect of the exterior is good, except the high slanting roofs, which though in correct taste, are somewhat unpleasing. Further on we saw the ruins of a rambling house, to which a dark story is attached ; for a young man is there said to have murdered his elder brother under circumstances of peculiar horror.