Wallace Collection of the wealthiest families in Europe. They owned large properties in England, Wales and Ireland, and increased their wealth through successful marriages. Politically of lesser importance, the 3rd and 4th Marquess and Sir Richard Wallace became leading art collectors of their time. The Wallace Collection, comprising about 5,500 works of art, was bequeathed to the British nation by Lady Wallace in 1897. The state then decided to buy Hertford House to display the collection and it was opened as a museum in 1900. As a museum the Wallace Collection's main strength is perhaps its extraordinary array of 18th-century French art:
Huntington Hartford in New York and tiring of his art colony, he asked local government officials and wealthy patrons to contribute to the colony's support. Lacking what he felt would be sufficient commitment, he shut down the colony in 1965 (he had sold the Huntington Hartford Theater in 1964). Hartford owned an extensive art collection. In an interview by Edward R. Murrow on his show "Person to Person" he gave a tour of the collection at his Beekman Place apartment including Rembrandt's "Portrait of a man, half-length, with his arms akimbo", which sold at Christie's auction house in London on December 8,