Twentieth-century private collecting

Abstract Dr Philip Nelson, who died in 1953, was an antiquary and collector who lived in Liverpool. One of the highlights of the collections of classical sculpture in the World Museum, part of National Museums Liverpool, is a group of statuettes and busts acquired by Nelson from the 12th Lord Kinnaird and formerly housed in Rossie Priory, near Perth in Scotland. Although Nelson bought only two sculptures from the first auction of sculptures from the Rossie Priory collection, held at Sotheby’s in London in December 1948, it is apparent that he acquired several others, either directly from Lord Kinnaird or through dealers. Details of this process can be found in the archives of the World Museum and the Walker Art Gallery, also part of National Museums Liverpool, including hitherto unpublished letters, notebooks and invoices, reproduced here in an online appendix. The correspondence provides an insight into the formation of a private collection of ancient sculpture in the first half of the twentieth century, a period often overlooked in collecting scholarship.