Portrait of Sir Abraham Hume of Wormleybury (1749-1838), in a blue coat

Sir Abraham Hume, a famous collector of art and precious stones, inherited the family estate in 1739, originally purchased by his uncle Alexander (d. 1766), a director of the East India Company. The house at Wormleybury was rebuilt (1767-69) for Hume by Robert Mylne, with interiors (1777-79) by Robert Adam and stucco work based on designs by Angelica Kauffman. Hume was a member of the Society of Dilettanti (1789) and of the Society of Antiquaries. He was a collector of old master paintings, beginning to purchase in the early 1770s until the beginning of the 19th century. His own manuscript of a catalogue of the collection, listing 177 paintings, is in the National Art Library, Victoria and Albert Museum. Paintings in the collection include Giovanni Bellini's Portrait of a Condottiere (National Gallery of Art, Washington), and Titian's The Death of Actaeon (National Gallery, London). He was a founding director of the British Institute in 1805 and a long-time friend of Sir Joshua Reynolds. Hume's collection passed, by his second daughter, to his grandson John, Viscount Alford (1812-51).