I cannot really remember the first time I saw a figure that was later to become so very familiar - a tallish, stoutish, replete-looking figure, with a neatly trimmed pepper and salt beard, large, pale blue short-sighted eyes behind handsome gold-rimmed spectacles, beautifully kept, well shaped hands and much better clothes than those of all our other visitors - a figure that radiated prosperity and was surrounded by an aura of bourgeois respectability - no, I was I suppose far too young on that occasion to remember now the first time I set eyes on the great revolutionary painter Henri Matisse.

Cockfield Hall houses a large, painted leather chest (see Fig.5). It has been associated with Lady Catherine Grey, who was imprisoned there from October 1567 until her death in January 1568. She was entrusted to Sir Owen Hopton, the owner and a distant cousin, who was later to become Lieutenant of The Tower of London. As a sister of Lady Jane Grey and a claimant to the throne, she posed a threat to Queen Elizabeth, especially after her marriage to Edward Seymour, Earl of Hertford, without the Queen's approval. One tradition states that this chest was in fact a marriage chest, but an absence of coats of arms and the depiction of the Prodigal Son, an odd choice for such a piece of furniture, makes this seem most unlikely.

In 1927 or 1928 the American circus magnate John Ringling purchased for his newly formed art collection the sixteenth-century Florentine Madonna illustrated in Fig.17. Sold at Christie's in February 1927 as a Bronzino, the work was correctly attributed by William Suida to the little-known Tuscan painter Benedetto Pagni of Pescia (1504-78) on the basis of a brief description in Vasari.

The thirteenth-century misericords at Exeter Cathedral - the earliest complete set extant in England - are well known and justly honoured relics of early mediaeval sculpture in wood. They and the choir furniture of which they form a part are traditionally said to have been made during the tenure of Bishop Brewer (1224-44) although a variety of dates has been assigned to them by modern historians. It has always been assumed that this furniture survived until the mid seventeenth century at which time, it is recorded in the Act Book of the cathedral, a rector of St Lawrence's Church, Exeter asked 'permission of the Dean and Chapter to have some of the woodwork lying in the south choir aisle for a church which we are re-building and restoring'. It was understood that in the early fourteenth century Brewer's stalls were transferred bodily from their former position under the Norman central tower - the usual position for the ritual choir in a Romanesque church - to the recently completed eastern extension. A reference in the cathedral fabric rolls under Christmas term 1309-10: 'In wages of Master John de Glaston' removing the stalls for fourteen weeks 52s.6d., 3s.9d. a week' supported this hypothesis. Well before the existing pseudo-Gothic furniture by George Gilbert Scott was erected (1870-77), it was remarked that Bishop Brewer's misericords had been cut each side to fit their frames. This mutilation can no longer be detected, as the seats were subject to further alterations during the late nineteenth-century restoration programme. However, we are told that it appeared to have been an early one and it was presumably thought to have been carried out during the seventeenth-century refurnishing of the choir.

Petrioli Tofani associated the five drawings which she discovered in the Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe under the name of Diirer with a further drawing in the Accademia Carrara at Bergamo and with four more drawings offered for sale by Paul Proute in Paris in 1973 (since untraced). The drawing at Bergamo is inscribed 'carlo arciduca / daustria / a / larcho de nelli', and Petrioli Tofani connected all of these drawings with the statues of princes and ancestors of the houses of Austria and Bavaria for two of the ephemeral triumphal arches designed by Cigoli, sited at the Canto de'Nelli and the Canto alla Paglia, for the entry into Florence of Archduke Charles's daughter Maria Maddalena of Austria in 1608, as recorded by Rinuccini.

In 1910 Eduard Sack enlarged the catalogue of thirty-five etchings by Giambattista Tiepolo adding some new plates: an etching representing St Jerome, in the Museo Civico, Bassano, two others representing a Magician, in the Museo Correr, Venice, and a plate showing various studies of heads and masks, in Sack's opinion executed by Tiepolo with the collaboration of Francesco Algarotti. Sack's suggestions have been variously received by connoisseurs. At all events, the attempt to increase the corpus of etchings by Tiepolo, beyond the two famous series of Capricci and Scherzi di Fantasia, the Adoration of the Magi and the St Joseph carrying the infant Christ is not without foundation. All the etchings so far known by Giambattista were owned and collected for publication by Anton Maria Zanetti and by Giandomenico Tiepolo, who selected the plates and titled the recueils. It is entirely possible that Giambattista etched other plates, less important in their subject matter, and therefore not included in the publications by Zanetti and Giandomenico, or maybe not even known by them.

Not long after Charles I's retreat from the capital, and certainly before 12th April 1643, a complete inventory was drawn up of one of the Court's abandoned picture collections, that of James, third Marquis of Hamilton. Many of the six hundred entries carry no attributions, but the work of Sir Ellis Waterhouse and Klara Garas has confirmed that well over three hundred of the pictures were Venetian, a considerable number even by the acquisitive standards of the Caroline Court, and surpassing the total of Venetian works owned by either Charles I or the first Duke of Buckingham. Moreover, many of Hamilton's pictures were supported by a persuasive provenance, having been obtained by the Marquis from the celebrated Venetian collections of Bartolomeo della Nave, of the Procurator Priuli and of Niccolo Renieri.

THE friendship of Don Nicolas Omazur with Bartolome Murillo has earned the Flemish merchant a portion of fame. He commis-sioned Murillo to paint portraits of himself and his wife, Dofia Isabel Malcampo, and he assembled one of the first collections of the artist's drawings. In addition, he had an engraving printed of Murillo's Self portrait (National Gallery, London), shortly after the death of the painter, as a demonstration of his affection.' The inventories of the picture collection of Don Nico-las prove that he was the most important private patron of Murillo - as far as is known Omazur never commissioned any public works. He owned more paintings by Murillo than any other collector of his century and his total of thirty-one Murillos is surpassed today only by the extensive holdings of the Prado. Forty-three other artists are named in the inventory and many of the finest painters of the seventeenth century are included. The collection of Omazur would merit attention even without Murillo.

Several years ago, Gino Corti published in these pages the 1741 inventory of Gregorio Agdollo's collection of paintings and reported on the life and dealings of this Armenian-born agent and collector, who died in Venice in 1789. Corti's account, however, ends in 1760. I am now able to add a few glimpses of Agdollo's collection in later years and an inventory of its remains drawn up probably soon after Agdollo's death. Although unsigned, it shows the unmistakable calligraphy of Pietro Edwards, Inspector of Monuments in the closing years of the Serenissima. It is also undated, but since it does not list several paintings sold by Agdollo's heirs, to which I shall refer below, it was almost certainly made after 1789. A comparison of the inventory with that of 1741 shows that only one painting from the earlier inventory remained, namely the Sacrifice of Abraham by Empoli. This turnover of 'stock' makes one inclined to consider Agdollo more as a dealer than as a true collector.