Background
WATSON, Francis John Bagott was born on August 24, 1907 in Dudley, Worcs. Son of Hugh Watson and Ellen Marian (nee Bagott).
museum director and civil servant
WATSON, Francis John Bagott was born on August 24, 1907 in Dudley, Worcs. Son of Hugh Watson and Ellen Marian (nee Bagott).
Shrewsbury School, and St. John's College, Cambridge.
Assistant Keeper, later Assistant Director Wallace Collection 1938-1963, Director 1963-1974. Assistant Surveyor of the King's (later the Queen's) Works of Art 1946-1963, Surveyor 1963-1972, Adviser for The Queen's Works of Art since 1972. Trustee, Whitechapel Art Gallery 1949-1974.
Chairman Furniture History Society 1966-1974. Slade Professor, of Fine Art, Oxford University 1969-1970. Kress Professor, Washington 1975-1976.
Chairman Walpole Society 1970-1977. Ben Sonnenberg Professor, of the History of Art, New York University 1979-1980 (Wrightsman Professor 1970-1971). Senior Resident Scholar J. Paul Getty Museum 1980-1983.
Smithsonian Regent Fellow 1982-1984. Honorary Master of Arts (Oxford) 1970. Ufficiale dell’Ordine al Merito della Repubblica Italiana.
New York University.
Canaletto 1949, Southill, A Regency House (with others) 1951, Catalogue of the Furniture in the Wallace Collection 1956, Louis XVI Furniture 1959 (revised French education 1963), The Choiseul Gold Box 1963, Wrightsman Catalogue (vols. I, II) 1966 (vols. Ill, IV) 1970 (vol. V) 1974, Eighteenth Century Gold Boxes of Europe (with others), The Guardi Family of Painters 1966, Tiepolo 1966, Fragonard 1967, The French Bronze 1500-1800 1968, Catalogue of Pictures and Drawings in the Wallace Collection (16th education) 1968, Chinese Porcelains in European Mounts 1980, Catalogue of Mounted Porcelain in J. Paul Getty Museum 1983, Oriental Porcelains in European Mounts 1986, Systematic Catalogue of Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century French Furniture, National Gallery, Washington 1989.
Married Mary Rosalie Gray Strong in 1941 (died in 1969).