Amongst the many interesting facts I learned yesterday about Charles I’s collection, the subject of a big exhibition we are doing next year in celebration of our 250th. birthday, was that Abraham van der Doort, the first Surveyor of the King’s Pictures, a position subsequently occupied by Anthony Blunt, had committed suicide in 1640, distraught because he thought that he had mislaid one of the King’s miniatures. Such dedication ! Before his suicide, he had been occupied in drawing up a very detailed catalogue of the King’s collection, which was preserved by Elias Ashmole and survives in the Bodleian.
| Charles | Saumarez | Smith | 
Excellent research! I was totally unaware of van der Doort or his Catalogue.
Will you and Per Rumberg be able to bring together some of the works in that catalogue ?
I am confident that it is going to be one of the great RA exhibitions of the decade. Hurray !
Cannot wait for this. I hope the fascinating Nicholas Lanier will be represented in some way – first Master of the King’s Music, spy, courtier, art buyer (van Dyck), Huguenot etc..