One of the most charming small art collections in the country, the Barber, is usually tucked away in Edgbaston, a bus ride from Birmingham train station, so we should rejoice that some of its choicest pieces are now in London while its university home is being refurbished.
It’s in the Courtauld, whose collection Samuel Courtauld set up in 1932 from his own acquisitions, the same year as Lady Barber established her endowment. Both are examples of the good effects of intelligent private philanthropy on the arts. The 18 pictures look altogether at home here, so much so that the moving Van Dyke Ecce Homo (a change from the usual grandiose royals and nobles) is positioned right next to the Courtauld’s own Van Dyke on the same subject of the suffering Christ.
