Edward Solly (25 April 1776 – 2 December 1844) was an English merchant living in Berlin, who amassed an unprecedented collection of Italian Trecento and Quattrocento paintings and outstanding examples of Early Netherlandish painting, at a time when those schools were still largely unappreciated.[1] In 1821, following negotiations by his associate Benjamin Wegner, Solly sold his collection of about 3000 works to the Prussian king; 677 of them formed a core of the Gemäldegalerie, Berlin. Solly acquired a second collection during his years in London after 1821. Solly is also credited for having undertaken a perilous journey to deliver the first news of Napoleon's defeat at the Battle of Leipzig to the English.[2]
- ^ "His collection contained a number of pictures of the first importance, belonging to schools which were universally neglected a hundred years ago," observed a Times correspondent on the occasion of the new Berlin museum gallery opening (The Times, 22 November 1905, quoted in J. Raymond Solly, Notes & Queries 12 March 1910.
- ^ The full account of the perilous journey undertaken in "the face of hostile forces and the disturbed state of the country" to delivery the despatch into the hands of the Foreign Secretary Lord Castlereagh is recounted by his son Edward Solly, F.R.S. in (News, and Newspapers) The Bibliographer, Elliot Stock, March 1884; Volumes 5–6, pg. 91.
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