Edward Solly (April 25, 1776 - December 2, 1844) was a British merchant living in Berlin, who collected an unprecedented collection of Italian Trecento and Quattrocento paintings and remarkable examples from the early Dutch , at that time most schools were still not appreciated. In 1821 Solly sold his collection of about 3000 works to the king of Prussia; 677 of them form the core of GemÃÆ'¤ldegalerie, Berlin. Solly earned a second collection during the years in London after 1821. Solly was also credited for having made a dangerous journey to deliver the first news of Napoleon's defeat at the Battle of Leipzig to England.
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Life
Solly is the younger brother of a British merchant family led by Isaac Solly involved in Baltic timber trade, with offices in London. As Non-Conformists, families experience social restrictions at a higher level than British society. During the Napoleonic Wars, the company was awarded a very large contract for the supply of Prussian and Polish oak timber as well as the ships of the Baltic. It was left in Stockholm and then in 1813 to Berlin, overseeing mass purchases of family companies in parts of the European continent not covered by the Napoleon Continental System. Through his acquaintance with 'Fighting Charlie' Vane he was present at the Battle of Leipzig in October 1813. After that he offered a fine sword to Captain Thomas Harris bearing the legend. From Edward Solly To Thomas Noel Harris, In Their Warning Fellowship At The Impressive Battle of Leipzig From 18 and 19 October 1813. Due to his intimacy with the Northern Lower Plains, Solly volunteered to bring Napoleon's defeat news to London. The journey took him fifteen days through enemy territory. He sailed to England across the North Sea on a Dutch fishing boat and arrived in London twenty-four hours before the official messenger.
In Berlin he married the daughter of Auguste Krö¼ger in 1816. His great appeal and personal intelligence opened the highest social circle, and when his business affairs prospered he was in good touch with ministry officials, Prussian castles, artists, connoisseurs and intellectuals.
On the way he became interested in painting. The social turmoil of war and the dissolution of the monastery brought many works of art to the market, and Solly proved to be an intelligent buyer, concerned with the origin and documentation of the works he bought, down to an unusual level in his generation. Although he has one of the best interior sights by Pieter de Hooch and perhaps Vermeer Lady Standing in Virginal (National Gallery, London), both fall into the desired contemporary category of "cabinet images", he is not interested in Seicento and Baroque Old Masters are shaping another major interest from contemporary collectors and connoisseurs, but rather to Italian Byzantine paintings beginning of the 13th and 14th centuries, which have been preserved especially in the churches and monasteries they have been commissioned. He had a wise eye for the early Netherlandish painting: his most famous purchase in that field was the wings of Ghent Altarpiece Hubert and Jan van Eyck, which was sold by the cathedral canon soon after being returned to Ghent in 1816; Solly bought the panel through Nieuwenhuys painting dealers.
Solly and the company suffered a major setback when their twenty merchants, running the Napoleonic blockade on behalf of the Allies, were captured by Denmark in the Napoleonic system and brought to Copenhagen. Only after years of pressing is any compensation done.
Solly continues to collect nonetheless, increasingly with the idea that his paintings may be purchased by the State of Prussia, to form a public collection. In 1815, Frederick William III bought the remains of Giustiniani's collection for such a purpose, but refused this purchase. Solly's financial situation is hard. Through the mediation of Benjamin Wegner, a friend and agent of Edward Solly, negotiations on purchases of collections by the Prussian state began in 1820, and by 1821 Solly's entire collection of about 3,000 images was purchased for the newly established Nationalgalerie Alte. 677 paintings selected for display in the museum; the others were hung in the Hohenzollern palace to replace the ones that had been transferred to the museum. Although Solly was an early admirer of early Netherlandish paintings, Solly's first collection mostly came from Italy, including Raphael Solly Madonna ( illustrations, right ). Under National Socialism, some Italian photographs were traded by native Germans and, some through Duveen, found their way to Samuel Henry Kress and Andrew W. Mellon's collection; thus Fra Filippo Lippi Madonna of the Niche and Duccio's Nativity both triptych are now in the National Gallery, Washington.
Following the successful sale he had pushed for so long, in 1821 Solly moved to London, where he retired from shipping and dealing with works of art, which filled his home at 7, Curzon Street, Mayfair. His interest narrowed to the High Renaissance. He acts on occasion as an adviser to John Bowes, whose collection forms the Bowes Museum. Often felt himself in financial matters, in eight London sales between 1825 and 1837 Solly sold paintings, drawings and engravings, according to Frits Lugt, although records now online through the Getty Provenance Index show a total of 1306 lots in many auctions, with Dutch golden paintings dominating, at least numerically, in varying works.
When his collection cream, the paintings he had ordered for himself, were sold on the orders of his heirs, his daughters Sarah and Lavinia and his son Edward Solly FRS, at Christie's, May 8, 1847, some were retained, or "bought in" at the sale when they failed to reach their reserves, like one of two works linked to "Lionardo da Vinci" (sic). Sarah Solly donated five paintings to the National Gallery in 1879, including Giovanni della Volta's Portrait with Wife and Children by Lorenzo Lotto (purchased in 1847 sales), and two Dutch Golden Age paintings.
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