John Sutherland Egerton; 6th Duke of Sutherland

John Sutherland Egerton, 85, the 6th Duke of Sutherland, owner of one of the great private collections of Old Master paintings. Educated at Eton and at Cambridge University, he served with the British Expeditionary Force in France during World War II, was captured in 1940 and spent five years in a German prison camp. Egerton succeeded his father in 1944 as 5th Earl of Ellesmere, inheriting the Ellesmere art collection and the London house. The duke inherited about 500 paintings and drawings, most purchased from the French royal collection of Louis Philippe, Duke of Orleans, after the French Revolution. Some of the most important works in the National Gallery of Scotland are on loan from the duke, including three Raphaels, five Titians, a Tintoretto and a group of Poussin’s works. The family collection includes many Rembrandts, Van Ruisdales, Cuyps and Teniers. Egerton inherited the dukedom of Sutherland in 1963 when his cousin the 5th Duke of Sutherland died without a male heir. On Thursday at a hospital near Mertoun, his estate in southeast Scotland, after a brief illness.