From the Collector

Several generations of my direct ancestors were collectors of fine art, antiquities and curios of all kinds. The most famous of these art collectors were the Dukes of Buckingham, after whom the Buckingham Collections are named.

There were four separate lineages in which Dukes of Buckingham were appointed, and in each case they became extinct after just two or three generations. One of these lineages relates to the Villiers family, to which I am directly connected.

George Villiers (1592-1628) became Duke of Buckingham in 1623. Favorite of King James 1st, he was a passionate collector of artworks, artifacts, antiquities, curios and specimens. Some of his collections of paintings and sculpture have been documented. In 1628, George Villiers the first Duke of Buckingham was assassinated by a Puritan fanatic.

Following the death of his father, George Villiers the second Duke (1628-1687), his brother and his sister, became wards of the King and were brought up together with his own children. While in Europe he assembled extensive collections of art and antiquities. After King Charles 1st was beheaded in 1649, Buckingham worked to restore the monarchy. He died on 16 April 1687, in Yorkshire, after catching a chill while hunting. He was buried in Westminster Abbey “in greater state, it was said, than the late King, and with greater splendor”.

For a long time it was “too dangerous” to be known as a Villiers or a Buckingham. Much of the Buckingham properties were dispersed among other nobles and his heirs remained hidden though surfaced from time to time, laying claims to Buckingham houses, art and even the noble title, and in each generation rewarded with sinecures, special favors or pensions. My grandfather George Villiers (aka Villierson or Hicks) became keeper of the royal stamp collection and for himself collected paintings, engravings, porcelain, curios, musical instruments, alchemical texts and books. My mother, Dorothy (“Dee”) Villiers, was an talented artist who enjoyed collecting painted porcelain, Chinese and European ceramics, orientalia of all kinds, antiquities and French fans.

My father was an engineer who helped develop the oil industry in Iraq, Kuwait and other parts of the Middle East. On my father’s side an uncle, Dr. Peter Gowan, was personal physician/friend to the King of Siam for years. My father’s sister, Margaret, married Dr. Bogden Richter, a famous Polish orientalist and linguist, who influenced me greatly.

As a child I accompanied my mother to estate auctions, museums and collections. Brought up largely in the Middle East, I was exposed primarily to classical antiquities – especially Egyptian, Hittite, Sumerian, Cypriote, Greek, Roman and Byzantine cultures. Our family home was in Kyrenia, on the northern coast of Cyprus – a large rambling estate filled with antiquities from the region and a wide range of archaeological and art-reference books, all collected by an eminent Egyptologist who gifted me his collections when he sold my parents the house. My uncle Bogden used to visit me when I went to boarding school in England, bring me to London and take me through the collections at the British Museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum and other institutions, testing me on what I had understood about the exhibits.

By the age of eleven I had “discovered” books on Buddhism, Yoga, Asian Art and mysticism in our library in Cyprus. These teachings in these books made a lot of sense to me, so I read them thoroughly - The Dhammapada, The Life of Buddha as Legend and History by Howard Thomas, Patanjali Yoga Sutras, Max Müller’s Sacred Books of the East, Christmas Humphreys’ The Wisdom of Buddhism, books by Sir John Woodroffe (“Arthur Avalon”) on the Hindu Tantric tradition, and so forth.

One of our favorite family recreations was walking over archaeological sites in northern Cyprus after rain, finding coins, Phoenician and Roman glass, stone-age relics and other artifacts – which were added to collections at our home in Kyrenia. I continually visited museums and private collections and from time to time bought Egyptian, Etruscan, Greek, Hittite and Roman artifacts from the souks, bazaars and antiquity dealers in Lebanon, Cyprus and Turkey. I bought my first Buddha at a yard sale in the Isle of Wight, UK, before I left school, and later on, my first Gandhara artifacts – a Buddha head and a small bronze Buddha - in Peshawar, Pakistan circa 1964.

I travelled overland to India several times in the 1960’s, passing through Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan – visiting most of the key archeological sites on the way. I walked throughout Swat, Chitral, Hunza and tribal areas of northern Pakistan, and parts of Afghanistan, visiting many of the “Gandhara”-cultural sites. I became friendly with the Wali of Swat and his immediate family and later I purchased Gandharan antiquities from them in London. During the 1960’s and early 1970’s I repeatedly visited all the main museums in Pakistan and India.

I moved to India, living for a number of years in Almora in the Uttar Pradesh Himalayas and made several pilgrimages to all the major Buddhist sacred places in India, Nepal and Sri Lanka – to Bodh Gaya, Sarnath, Kapilavastu, Lumbini, Saheth Maheth, Ajanta, Nagarjunakonda and so on, and later visited most of the Goddess “Pitth” sites of Hindu tradition, and the Great Cremation Grounds of Tantric tradition - some of this I documented in my first published book Tantra Yoga. Later, while finishing a book on the Karmapa Lama, I accompanied the Karmapa hierarch all through India on Buddhist pilgrimage.

I spent extensive periods researching in the museums and archaeological store-houses of India, Nepal and Pakistan, studied Ayurveda, Sanskrit and Tibetan language, and for an extended period worked under the guidance of Ajit Mookerjee, curator of the Crafts Museum, New Delhi and author of Tantra Art and Tantra Asana. I helped bring the major Tantra Art exhibit to the Hayward Gallery, London in 1971, with Robert Fraser and Philip Rawson. I made several trips to India, during which I produced and directed the film “Tantra” and founded/edited the quarterly magazine “Chakra”. I also was one of the very early visitors to Dolpo and parts of Mustang – Tibetan cultural areas within Nepal – photographing and printing from wood-blocks in the monasteries, eventually published as “Tantric Charms and Amulets”. Returning to live for a while in the UK I worked as a consultant for several major auction houses, collectors and dealers. All the while I collected archaeological, Buddhist and Hindu artifacts, Tibetan thangka paintings, Indian miniature paintings, manuscripts, ritual implements and other Asian as well as African art-works. I purchased from estate sales, a network of antique dealers, private collections, auctions and especially from the top London Asian art dealers of the time, such as Spinks, John Hewitt, Adrian Maynard, David Tremayne, Christopher Gibbs, Philip Goldman and others. I also traded/exchanged art-works with contemporary art dealers including Robert Fraser, John Kasmin and with artists who had an interest in cultural artifacts from Asia and Africa.

During the late 1960’s and early 1970’s many of the artifacts I collected while in Asia were recovered by me from scrap-merchants who, from time to time I worked for – in both India and Pakistan. On occasions I bought important bronzes and other metal items (including silver and gold) by weight prior to their being destined for the melting crucible. I never bought a looted artifact.

My mother died in Cyprus in 1973, following a serious illness. In 1974 the Turkish army invaded northern Cyprus, landing on the beach below our residence. They established their headquarters in the house, killing my father in the process, destroying much of the family collection of art-works, furnishings and property kept there. I eventually relocated to the West Indies, determined to establish a safe haven for my family and property. In 1979 my best-seller “Sexual Secrets: The Alchemy of Ecstasy” was published and eventually was translated into more than 30 languages. My follow-up book “Spiritual Sex: Secrets of Tantra from the Ice Age to the New Millennium” was published in 1997.

Over the past five years or so I have been refining and organizing the Buckingham Collections, which are extensive.

Nicholas Villiers Studdert Douglas

(Nik Douglas)