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In a recent professional newsletter I subscribe to, I noticed this past month an item on the display at Apsley House, home of the Dukes of Wellington, that focuses on the art collection that the first Duke acquired during the Napoleonic wars while he was in Spain. According to the description, the "Iron Duke" was in pursuit of Joseph Bonaparte who was fleeing Madrid but who had made sure to take with him various artworks belonging to the Spanish royal gallery before leaving the Spanish capital. When ex-King Joseph abandoned the art collection in his haste to avoid Wellington, then the latter took temporary poassession but then made sure later to attempt to return them to their rightful place: "Wellington’s men saved most of the paintings, amongst them works by Velzquez, Titian, Rubens and Brueghel. When most of the paintings had been identified and Wellington was informed that they had come from Spain he wrote to the restored King Ferdinand VII and offered them back. Wellington was told that the King was ‘touched by your delicacy’ and he ‘did not want to deprive Wellington of that which has come into your possession by means as just as they are honourable’." So in this unusual historic chain of events, they have remained to the present day at the city home of the Dukes of Wellington and now can be viewed by the wider public also in tours that began this past month of May. There are some 82 individual paintings on display in the collection. The "iron Duke" acquired them at Vitoria, Spain in 1813 after a battle there. Apsley House - Spanish royal art