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

Louis Jebb26 February 2024

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

Hosted by Ben Luke. Produced by David. Clack, Julia Michalska and Alexander Morrison8 March 2024

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

Martin Bailey1 March 1998

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

Anna Somers Cocks1 September 2019

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

Anna Somers Cocks1 October 1998

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

Martin Bailey30 January 2024

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

Anna Somers Cocks30 June 2015

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

Maev Kennedy1 December 2023

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

Anna Somers Cocks1 September 2010

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

Susan Moore1 October 1990

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

Anna Somers Cocks1 September 2010

The National Gallery: a place of learning in its (public) archive

The London museum has a remarkable archive and library, available to all, and a research strategy that includes the opening of a new research centre in 2028

In partnership withThe National Gallery

National Gallery's £85m anniversary capital projects to offer visitors a new welcome

Gabriele Finaldi, the gallery’s director, speaks of the opportunities and challenges that come with the sheer scale of the NG200 programme, and beyond

In partnership withThe National Gallery

Castle Howard: stage set for Bridgerton and Brideshead, and now for a full-dress Tony Cragg show

The Liverpool-born sculptor's 50-year engagement with organic, layered, forms works in natural harmony with the Yorkshire treasure house and its Arcadian grounds

Where is Edward Bawden’s monumental painting Country Life? UK trust launches search for missing masterpiece

Jacob Rothschild’s Waddesdon Manor wants to track down the massive mural created for the 1951 Festival of Britain

From the archive | Getty and Rothschild team up for fellowship supporting 'innovative scholarship'

Art historians and conservators will study at the Getty in Los Angeles and Waddesdon Manor in Buckinghamshire

The Rothschild collection that got away

The British Museum reopens the Waddesdon Bequest Wunderkammer, funded by Lord Rothschild