Jacob Rothschild
Jacob Rothschild (1936-2024)
The banker, philanthropist and collector was one of the most consequential figures in the British art world for the last five decades of his life
Remembering Jacob Rothschild, banker, collector, philanthropist, and a towering figure in the British art world
A scion of the famous banking dynasty, he led the National Gallery, the Heritage Lottery Fund and Waddesdon Manor
Photography and feminist activism, Jacob Rothschild remembered and Robert Ryman
We speak to the curators of the South London Gallery's latest show and to our founding editor about the legacy one of the UK's leading philanthropists. We also discuss Robert Ryman's work Adelphi on show at the Musée de l’Orangerie
From the archive | When Jacob Rothschild spoke out about the challenges of running the Heritage Lottery Fund
Rothschild retired as the first chairman of the Heritage Lottery Fund at the end of March 1998. In a rare interview, he described its relationship with government
From the archive | Jacob Rothschild retires from banking in a flurry of art projects
The Waddesdon Treasury opens at the Buckinghamshire family mansion managed and financed since 1988 by Rothschild—a man who has been an eminence grise of the British art world for the past 30 years
From the archive | Jacob Rothschild fulfils a 50-year-old dream with two sculptures by a Greek Modernist
How two monumental figures by Niko Ghika looking out from Corfu were made
Waddesdon Manor
Waddesdon, a treasure house in Buckinghamshire given to the National Trust by Jimmy and Dollie de Rothschild in 1957, had been managed and financed by Jacob Rothschild through a family trust since Dollie de Rothschild's death in 1988, with many family-owned pieces put on permanent display
From the archive | Waddesdon, Museum of the Year and the exemplar of a Rothschild house
Jacob Rothschild, the banker and former head of the National Heritage Memorial Fund, always took a deeply personal interest in the last of the great Rothschild houses
Rothschild foundation acquires lost Guercino masterpiece
The portrait of Moses surfaced in Paris in 2022 and will form part of a loan exhibition at Waddesdon Manor in March
From the archive | A shared pride: the Rothschilds yesterday, today and tomorrow
Jacob, Lord Rothschild, is one of the great benefactors of the English museum scene in both time and money
Waddesdon Manor’s elephant swings its trunk once more
Restored to its former glory, the 200kg automaton is now on show at the Buckingham mansion
From the archive | £5m Guercino returns to Spencer House, its historic home
Purchase begins final phase of Jacob Rothschild’s visionary restoration of one of London’s few surviving aristocratic town palaces
Spencer House
Spencer House, the 18th-century London house of the Spencer family, and the last of the great aristocratic London houses to remain in the hands of the original family, was leased to Jacob Rothschild, to be the headquarters of J Rothschild Holdings—later RIT Capital Partners—in 1985. After five years of painstaking restoration of its neo-classical State Rooms, designed by Athenian Stuart, the house was reopened by Diana, Princess of Wales, daughter of the house's freeholder, the 8th Earl Spencer, in November 1990. It has been open to the public one day a week since May 1991
From the archive | Jacob Rothschild restores Spencer House, the Princess of Wales’s family house in London
Some of the house's 18th-century furniture has been lent back by the Victoria & Albert Museum but other pieces and paintings integral ot its design have left Britain for good
From the archive | £5m Guercino returns to Spencer House, its historic home
Purchase begins final phase of Jacob Rothschild’s visionary restoration of one of London’s few surviving aristocratic town palaces