The Burrell Collection

Degas - Jockeys in the Rain

Honoré Daumier - The Print Collector

The BBC has done well this year.

Over the last month or two it has focussed more on collectors and their influence than it has on individual artists or movements and this week it introduced me to Willie Burrell, a Glaswegian shipping magnate. The show, called "The Man who Collected the World," is without doubt a reason to hit the i-player if you're in the UK and I'm sure if you look hard enough you'll find it elsewhere too.

Perhaps the most notable aspects of his collecting were his eye, his wandering passions and the sheer personal-ness of the collections. Burrell had different passions at different times and he followed them around the world. He could spot quality both in artistic interest and craftsmanship but above all he bought things himself, he didn't depend on agents. Everything he bought, he bought because he liked, and that is truly unusual in a collection of this size.

Edouard Manet

The Beer-Drinking Manet about 14 minutes in is exquisite, the stained glass breath-taking, the Degas collection beautiful (although the National Gallery still trumps it with what Matisse and I believe to be the best Degas of all). The alabaster St John at 26 minutes couldn't be finer and as for the paradise carpet at 45 minutes... You have never seen the like of some of the things here.

The collection is in the Pollok Country Park in the south of Glasgow. I think I need to head to Scotland as soon as I have some pocket money!

Marriage at Cana