The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York acquired a number of notable Cassiobury pieces, including the ornately carved wooden staircase by Grinling Gibbons/Edward Pearce, as well as three paintings from the house: a double portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds of George Capel, Viscount Malden (the Fifth Earl of Essex) as a boy of ten with his sister, Lady Elizabeth Capel; a double portrait of Mary and Elizabeth Capel painted by the Dutch artist Sir Peter Lely; and a portrait of their brother Sir Henry Capel, also by Lely.