Art collector.
William Fuller Maitland
1813 - 1876
This person is the subject of ongoing research. We have started by researching their relationship to the enslavement of people.
Biographical notes
Summary of activity
William Fuller Maitland was the son of Ebenezer Fuller Maitland of Stansted, Essex, and Park Place, Henley-on-Thames. He was the grandson of Ebenezer Maitland, a West India merchant based in London and partner in Maitland, Bond and Ede, and director of the Bank of England from 1798 (UCL Department of History, ‘Ebenezer Maitland’, in UCL Department of History (ed.), Legacies of British Slave-ownership [online], London 2020, <https://www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/person/view/2146633426> accessed 30 July 2021). Ebenezer Maitland was mortgagee of Amity Hall in Jamaica (mortgaged by Thomas Cussans to Ebenezer Maitland et al in 1797). Ebenezer Fuller Maitland, MP for Lostwithiel, Wallingford and Chippenham, took no part in the family business and according to the History of Parliament he professed his support for ‘the slow and gradual, but effectual’ abolition of slavery (D. R. Fisher, ‘FULLER MAITLAND (formerly MAITLAND), Ebenezer (1780-1858), of Park Place; Shinfield Park, Berks.; Stansted Mountfitchet, Essex and 11 Bryanston Square, Mdx.’, in History of Parliament Trust (ed.), The History of Parliament: British Political, Social & Local History [online], London, 1964 -, 1820-1832 <https://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1820-1832/member/fuller-maitland-ebenezer-1780-1858> accessed 30 July 2021). Also according to the History of Parliament Ebenezer Fuller Maitland inherited £500,000 through his marriage to the grand-daughter of William Fuller (1705–1800), a London banker, and as he was thus well provided for, Ebenezer Maitland left him 500 guineas.
In 1842, in Florence, William Fuller Maitland married Lydia, daughter of Lieutenant-Colonel Serjentson Prescott. After the death of his first wife, he married, in 1852 Charlotte Elizabeth Dick, daughter of James Munro Macnabb.
He built up a collection of paintings, many purchased during trips to Italy, where he bought mainly paintings of the early Italian, Netherlandish and German schools. In 1878, after his death, most of his collection was exhibited at the South Kensington Museum.
Slavery connections
He was the grandson of Ebenezer Maitland, mortgagee of Amity Hall in Jamaica.
Abolition connections
The History of Parliament states that William Fuller Maitland’s father, Ebenezer Fuller Maitland (1780-1858) professed his support for ‘the slow and gradual, but effectual’ abolition of slavery.
National Gallery painting connections
Former owner: the following works once in the Fuller Maitland collection were bought by the National Gallery in 1878: Botticelli, Mystic Nativity (NG1034), which had also been owned by William Young Ottley (q.v.); Franciabigio, Portrait of a Knight of Rhodes (NG1035) and follower of Jan van Scorel, A Man with Pansies and a Skull (NG1036).
In 1898 the Gallery bought Marco d‘Oggiono, Portrait of a Man aged 20 (’The Archinto Portrait') (NG1665). NB it states that it was bought from Fuller Maitland, but he had died in 1876. A painting acquired with the Salting Bequest (q.v.) of 1910 had also once been in the Fuller Maitland collection: John Constable, Weymouth Bay: Bowleaze Cove and Jordon Hill (NG2652).
NG1037–1040 were bought by the Gallery and subsequently transferred to Tate: John Crome, Slate Quarries (N01037); attributed to William Mulready, A Snow Scene (N01038); Thomas Barker of Bath, Getting in Clover: Noon (N01039) and William James Müller, A Mountain Stream (N01040).
Bibliography
D. R. Fisher, 'MAITLAND (afterwards FULLER MAITLAND), Ebenezer (1780-1858), of Shinfield Park, Berks. and Stansted, Essex', in History of Parliament Trust (ed.), The History of Parliament: British Political, Social & Local History, London 1964-, 1790-1820, https://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1790-1820/member/maitland-%28afterwards-fuller-maitland-%29-ebenezer-1780-1858
Checked and found
— Item on publisher's website
D. R. Fisher and S. Farrell, 'FULLER MAITLAND (formerly MAITLAND), Ebenezer (1780-1858), of Park Place; Shinfield Park, Berks.; Stansted Mountfitchet, Essex and 11 Bryanston Square, Mdx', in History of Parliament Trust (ed.), The History of Parliament: British Political, Social & Local History, London 1964-, 1820-1832, https://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1820-1832/member/fuller-maitland-ebenezer-1780-1858
Checked and found
— Item on publisher's website
J. A. F. Maitland and H. Davies, 'Maitland, William Fuller', in C. Matthew et al. (eds), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford 1992-, https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/17840
Checked and found
— Item on publisher's website
J. Sheather, 'Maitland, William Fuller', in J. Turner et al. (eds), Grove Art Online, Oxford 1998-, https://doi.org/10.1093/gao/9781884446054.article.T053303
Checked and found
— Item on publisher's website
UCL Department of History (ed.), Legacies of British Slave-ownership, London 2020, https://www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/
Checked and not found
— Item on publisher's website
Paintings previously owned by William Fuller Maitland
The infant Christ reaches up towards the Virgin Mary, oblivious of his visitors – the Three Kings on the left and the shepherds on the right. The golden dome of heaven has opened up and is circled by 12 angels holding olive branches entwined with scrolls and hung with crowns. In the foreground, t...
Not on display
Follower of Jan van Scorel
We don't know who painted this portrait or the sitter’s identity, though he was clearly a man of means. His clothes are rich but sombre – a black or dark grey hat and doublet, and a purple coat lined with grey damask. His white shirt is finely woven and the laces at his neck have gold tips; he we...
Not on display
The date 1514 is just visible on the letter carried by the sitter, although the words are illegible. The inscription in the parapet reads, in primitive French, ‘who loves well is slow to forget’. The sitter wears the Maltese Cross of the Order of Saint John. In 1514 Franciabigio was working for t...
Not on display
A young man gazes past us and into the distance, his hand resting on a marble shelf. We don‘t know who he is, but he holds a scroll bearing his age (20), the date (1494) and a monogram, apparently ’AMPRF‘. This is probably an early portrait by the Milanese painter Marco d’Oggiono, a pupil of Leon...
Botticelli painted at least six scenes of the Adoration of the Kings. This, one of his most expansive and ambitious, is painted in a circular format called a tondo. The figures and animals in the outer circle face inwards to pay respect to the Christ Child, inviting the viewer to do the same. Bo...
Probably by Lo Spagna
Christ kneels on a grassy hillock, hands folded in prayer, and looks up at a floating angel who carries a chalice. At the front, three of the apostles slumber, heads resting on their arms or hands. Soldiers wearing fantastic Renaissance versions of classical armour approach from the sides, led by...