The aristocratic artist of Castle Howard who had no need to sell his pictures

So, too, a powerful and long-established, aristocratic family, fashionable and influential connections, inherited skills and the ability to travel abroad - all without the worry of have to earn a crust.

George James Howard (1843-1911) ticked all the boxes and more. As 9th Earl of Carlisle, he owned one of England's great treasure houses, Castle Howard, along with other vast Northern estates, notably Naworth Castle in Cumbria, and the sumptuous London home at 1 Palace Green he shared with his striking wife, Rosalind, a radical activist and eighth daughter of the 2nd Baron Stanley of Alderley.

His maternal grandfather was James Parke, 1st Baron Wensleydale, his father, Charles, was the fifth son of George Howard, 6th Earl of Carlisle, his uncles, George and William, were the 7th and 8th Earls, and his artistic mother, the Hon. Mary Priscilla Harriet Parke, was a pupil of landscape painter Peter De Wint.

She died 14 days after George's birth but her son grew up surrounded by examples of her work and a stunning collection of art and antiques.

Castle Howard then housed 1,000 oil paintings, neatly 600 watercolours and drawings, 200-plus sculptures, jewellery, silver, porcelain and furniture too numerous to list and a 20,000-volume library, although the fabulous collection was diminished somewhat during the 9th Earl's time by two fires, sales and gifts to the nation and family members.

Born into a life of wealth and privilege, George Howard practised his artistic skills, first at Eton, where he filled sketchbooks with pencil drawings of his fellow pupils, and later at Cambridge University before studying at Leigh's Art School in London and the Royal College of Art.

With his wife, whom he married in 1864, taking over the running of the Howard estates, George was free to concentrate on his pictures..

With no need to sell, much of his output remained in the family. But now a clutch of his oils, watercolours and sketches have been offered at auction for the first time in their history after being handed down through the generations.

Many of those which surfaced at Dreweatts of Newbury, Berkshire, were landscapes but a fair few were of his family, including portraits of his wife, daughter Lady Cecilia and sketches of some of his grandchildren, including three sensitive sketches of George and Rosalind's daughter Elizabeth, who died in 1883, aged four months.

Scenic views from his travels in India, Italy, France, and, closer to home, Atherstone House in Lincoln and Lanercost Priory, near Naworth Castle, fetched sums ranging from £2,400-£11,100, mostly well above estimate.

Most interesting, although generally fetching less, are images of his family, with an oil of his wife Rosalind, a strong advocate for women's suffrage and a member of the temperance movement, fetching £3,025.

A watercolour of the radical countess went for £1,135, while one of Lady Cecilia, sketching in the garden, made for £2,140.

Top seller in the collection was another oil portrait of Lady Cecilia, this one not by the 9th Earl but by his friend Matthew Ridley Corbet (1850-1902), which realised a double estimate £15,120.

A Portrait of a Lady, traditionally identified as an Elizabethan member of the Howard family, by a follower of Hieronymus Custodis (died 1593), made £11,970 and a watercolour by Lady Cecilia herself, of Amalfi in Italy, raised a surprise £2,395.

Finally, a little more about the earl, Liberal MP from 1879 for East Cumberland, and his wife, both of whom commissioned portraits from important painters, Rosalind from (Lord for a day) Frederic Leighton and her husband from George Frederic Watts.

Rosalind was also painted by Dante Rossetti and all three family homes were furnished by William Morris, Edward Burne-Jones, Walter Crane and other leading designers.

As a painter, the earl, although an amateur, won the approbation of artists including Leighton, Watts, Burne-Jones, James Tissot, Edward Lear and Burne-Jones. He also exhibited at the Royal Academy and eventually became an honorary member of the Royal Society of Painters in Water-Colours.

The couple had 11 children (not so uncommon among the wealthy then), including his successor, Charles James Stanley Howard, 10th Earl (1867-1912). The 9th Earl's death in 1911 and that of the Countess in 1921 marked a turning point in the Howard collections.

From 1890 they began parting with some paintings, including major works by Diego Velazquez, Titian, Anthony van Dyck and Jan Gossaer's The Adoration of the Magi.