The Victor Batte-Lay Trust

Permanent Collection

Keith Baynes

John Constable

John Sell Cotman

John Sell Cotman

Hugh Cronyn

Andrew Freeth

Eduardo Paolozzi

Camille Pissaro

Gino Severini

Maggi Hambling

Harry Becker

Michael Chase

Keith Baynes

Anne Mell

John O'Connor

Peter Coker

Edward Bawden

Richard Houston

Richard Houston

Richard Bedford

Humphrey Spender

John Constable

Dione Page

John Vine

John Bensusan Butt

Clarence Victor Lay, whose collection is recorded here, was born in Holy Trinity Parish, in Colchester in 1865. He was educated at Colchester Royal Grammar School and later made his reputation in the brewing industry in the King’s Lynn area. He changed his name to Batte-Lay by deed poll in 1922 and, on his retirement, went back to Colchester, where he died in 1935, following a fall from his pony during his daily ride. He was a hereditary freeman, whose ancestors can be traced back to the days of the bay trade. Victor Batte-Lay was an avid collector of furniture and paintings. After his death, his widow; Margaret Eleanore Batte-Lay looked after his collection for twenty years. In January 1955, before she died, she directed her Trustees to purchase and endow a building in Colchester as a memorial to her husband “for the benefit and advantage of the inhabitants of Colchester and in particular those who shall take an interest in the artistic and antiquarian features of that town.” A venue was therefore required and The Minories, then owned by Dr Butt, a second generation woman doctor and sister-in-law of Lucien Pissaro, was purchased in 1956. The Minories was opened to the public as an Art Gallery on the 30th May 1958 by the then Director of the Victoria and Albert Museum, later knighted as Sir Trenchard Cox and Mr R.A. Butler, Home Secretary.

The original bequest focused on British art and artists from the 17th century onwards. The collection included still lives, regency portraits, 18th century prints and drawings, 19th samplers and oil paintings. It then expanded through a number of acquisitions and loans over the years and now brings together a wide range of material.

The Victor Batte-Lay Collection includes works by internationally celebrated artists with local relevance, such as Roderic Barrett whose work is at the V&A, Peter Coker RA, Maggi Hambling RA, B. Hughes-Stanton RA and Humphrey Spender with a watercolour entitled Gross National Product. There are a few John and Paul Nash lithographs, which are remaining after 70 wood engravings by John Nash, executed between 1919 and 1927, were offered to The Tate Gallery in 1992. The collection also includes 14 drawings of figures by Camille Pissarro, 3 prints by Michael Rothenstein and a book of prints and watercolours by Gino Severini entitled Fleurs et Masques.

There is also a significant representation of important painters such as John Sell Cotman with an 1838 series of sketches and studies entitled Liber Studorium. There are 2 mezzotints by Richard Houston after John Cotes’s portraits of the Countess of Coventry and the Duchess of Hamilton. It also owns an important Venetian painting by an unknown artist of Constantinople entitled The Spotted Dog, on loan to Colchester Borough Council and there are three drawings attributed to John Constable, although the attribution is uncertain.

The collection includes 23 photographs of the Mersea Oysterage, now on loan to Mersea Museum, and a number of bronze sculptures such as the sculpture of a head by Eduardo Paolozzi and 2 cast iron fire back panels after Leonardo Da Vinci.

Altogether the Victor Batte-Lay Collection, with its 135 acquisitions, gives an insight of East Anglian culture. It explores works by local British artists of national and international standing and provides inspiration for future generations of painters and sculptors at local as well as national and international levels. Some of these works of art are on occasional display at firstsite at the Minories, as part of their function room programme.

Evelyne Bell

July 2005

If you wish to see the rest of the VBLT collection, please contact Tom Hodgson on 01206 282 935 at the Resource Centre in Rygate Road.