Meet the Expert: The Gold Cups of Eternal Stability and the Celebration of the Chinese New Year The Wallace Collection 2026-09-18 | Meet the Expert: The Gold Cups of Eternal Stability and the Celebration of the Chinese New Year
Ranjit Singh: Sikh, Warrior, King The Wallace Collection 2024-01-31 | This spring, we present a major new exhibition tracing the life of Ranjit Singh (1780-1839), who emerged as the Punjab region’s undisputed Maharaja by the turn of the 19th century. His meteoric rise to power brought about the hugely influential Sikh Empire, which shaped the future of the Indian subcontinent.Ranjit Singh: Sikh, Warrior, King will showcase glittering weaponry, intricate miniature paintings and exquisite jewellery, drawn from public and private collections. Book now to discover the life and legacy of one of the world's greatest leaders.Exhibition opens 10 April 2024. Book your tickets today: bit.ly/48Us7bg
Turner and Bonington: Watercolours from the Wallace Collection The Wallace Collection 2023-10-02 | Embark on a journey with our new display of works by two of Britain's greatest watercolourists, Joseph Mallord William Turner and Richard Parkes Bonington.Bringing together ten exceptional images, from the rugged Yorkshire Dales to the grandeur of Venice, Turner and Bonington: Watercolours from the Wallace Collection is a rare opportunity to view works not seen in public for 17 years.Until 21 April 2024.Find out more: bit.ly/3PE6pAS
Final weeks – Portraits of Dogs: From Gainsborough to Hockney The Wallace Collection 2023-09-25 | Don't miss your chance to visit our 5-star exhibition Portraits of Dogs: From Gainsborough to Hockney before it closes on 15 October 2023. Discover works by Leonardo da Vinci, Edwin Landseer, Lucian Freud and many more in the first major exhibition dedicated to dog portraiture. Book your tickets: bit.ly/3jjssQg Members go free.
Seminar in the History of Collecting: Baroque Neapolitan art in English Grand-Tour collections The Wallace Collection 2023-06-27 | This talk aims to provide an overview of the history of collecting Baroque Neapolitan art in England from 1680s to 1800s, a period when many English artists and collectors travelled to Naples during the Grand Tour. Based on Alessia Attanasio’s PhD research, it will introduce artists from the Kingdom of Naples who enjoyed considerable success among English patrons, demonstrating how the Grand Tour influenced the market for Baroque Neapolitan art — not just for the newly discovered antiquities in Pompeii, Herculaneum and Stabiae.Alessia Attanasio is an Italian art historian and PhD researcher at the University of Birmingham, focusing on Baroque Neapolitan art that was collected in England during the Grand Tour (1680s–1820s).
Seminar in the History of Collecting: Knickerbocker Glory? Clearwaters American silver The Wallace Collection 2023-05-23 | The Clearwater Bequest of 1933 is a landmark in the development of the Metropolitan Museum of Art's holdings of early American silver, and in the American Colonial Revival more broadly. Alphonso Trumpbour Clearwater was a judge, antiquary and pillar of society in Kingston, NY. Drawing on the Clearwater papers at Winterthur as well as his correspondence with curators at the Met, MFA and other museums, this paper considers the origin of Clearwater's collecting of late-17th- and 18th-century silver in late 19th-century fairs, the role of his advisors and key acquisitions. Join Professor Jonathan Conlin as he explores Clearwater’s fascinating collection of American silver.
Dogs in French 18th-Century Decorative Arts The Wallace Collection 2023-05-19 | Join Curatorial Assistant Félix Zorzo and his guest Dr Mia Jackson, Curator of Decorative Arts, Waddesdon Manor (National Trust), as they converse about the love for dogs among artists, painters and collectors in 18th-century France.
Seminar in the History of Collecting: Ferdinand Rothschild and his dealers. The Wallace Collection 2023-04-18 | Waddesdon Manor stands as a visual archive, the most potent we have, of Ferdinand de Rothschild’s collecting practice. Created from 1874, its furnishings and art are a remarkable survival from over 40 Rothschild homes across Europe. While Ferdinand’s tastes in what he called ‘bric-a-brac’ are clear, precisely how he acquired the ‘rare…beautiful’ and ‘doubly desirable’ works of art referred to in his Reminiscences, is more of a mystery. Join Dr Diana Davis as she explores Ferdinand’s account books at The Rothschild Archive, and sheds new light on his interaction with the art market and its relationship to the wider collecting practice of his day.
Seminar in the History of Collecting: Reconstructing the art collection of May Morris (1862–1938) The Wallace Collection 2023-03-28 | First-hand study of historical artworks was a cornerstone of the designing, making and scholarly practices of a leading light of the Arts and Crafts movement, May Morris (1862-1938). In her artistic and scholarly practices, Morris also drew from artworks from her own personal collection. Join Thomas Cooper, PhD candidate at the University of Cambridge, in his attempt to reconstruct May Morris’s art collection. Thomas will draw attention to the tensions in Morris’s interests and practices as a collector with respect to issues of looting, participation in exploitative markets, and fraught values of classification. The speaker will bring together a variety of primary sources such as letters, lecture slides, photographic reproductions, museum holdings, museum accession registers, the inventory report and estate sale catalogue of Kelmscott Manor, and articles on historical textiles.
Meet the Expert: The Armourers of New Julfa The Wallace Collection 2023-03-22 | The Wallace Collection is home to a remarkable and richly-decorated armour made in 1844 in New Julfa, the Armenian neighbourhood of Isfahan. In this talk, Arthur Bijl will explore the rich artistic tradition of this neighbourhood, its trials and tribulations during the eighteenth century, and its importance as a centre of armour making during the nineteenth century.Discover more about this fascinating armour set in this month's Expert's Choice video: youtu.be/GRmnVrwnHmM
An Armenian Armour in Isfahan The Wallace Collection 2023-03-08 | In March’s Meet the Expert video Arthur Bijl, our Hutton McRoberts Assistant Curator of Ottoman, Middle Eastern and Asian Arms and Armour, dissects a unique armour made in New Julfa, the Armenian neighbourhood of the old Iranian capital of Isfahan.
Rosa Bonheur The Wallace Collection 2023-03-01 | During Women's History Month, discover Rosa Bonheur (1822-1899). She was a highly successful artist during her lifetime - an exceptional achievement for a woman in a male-dominated artworld. Her painting of Brizo, A Shepherd’s Dog in the Wallace Collection reveals her ability to give life to her animal subjects.
Seminar in the History of Collecting: Millionaire shopping, the collections of Alfred Morrison The Wallace Collection 2023-02-28 | Title: Millionaire shopping: the collections of Alfred Morrison (1821–1897)Speaker: Dr Caroline Dakers (Professor Emerita in Cultural History, University of Arts London)Abstract: As the editor and principal contributor of the forthcoming publication ‘Millionaire shopping’, Dr Caroline Dakers will present an overview of the extraordinary collections of Alfred Morrison, one of the most important but most neglected of late 19th-century collectors. She will discuss the impact of his upbringing as the second son of the merchant James Morrison, one of the richest commoners in England, and a collector of some distinction, and his own inheritance of part of William Beckford’s Fonthill estate.His approach to collecting was both catholic and competitive. His taste ranged across Old Masters and contemporary art; autographs, manuscripts and engraved portraits of famous men and women; coins and medals; Chinese ceramics, many from the Summer Palace; Spanish damascene work and enamelled objets d’art commissioned from French craftsmen. But he was never content with a few examples within each area. Thus, he amassed several thousand pieces of porcelain, thousands of engraved portraits, most of Charles Lepec’s enamel work and most of John Brett’s paintings. He commissioned the architect-designer Owen Jones, in collaboration with the firm of Jackson and Graham, to provide internal fittings, furniture and furnishings for both his London town house in Carlton House Terrace and Fonthill House in Wiltshire.Dr Dakers will examine why Morrison has remained relatively obscure, including the impact of his young widow selling the major part of his collections shortly after he died.
Meet the Expert: A Closer Look at Miniatures in the Wallace Collection The Wallace Collection 2023-02-13 | In this talk, Dr Lucy Davis will explore in greater depth the miniatures at the Wallace Collection, which were collected by the Marquesses of Hertford and Sir Richard Wallace. She will discuss highlights and less well-known examples from the collection, focussing particularly but not exclusively on the British miniatures. She will explore the different techniques and materials used by miniature painters over the centuries, and the range of subject matter represented in our collection. Also to be discussed is the original function of these miniatures. Why did women often become specialists in miniature painting? She will examine more closely the fascinating personalities of the artists who contributed to this great art form.Follow the link below to learn more from Dr Davis about our collection of miniatures: youtu.be/pE4dwJeLCcg
Meet the Expert: Experiencing and Painting Venice in the 18th Century The Wallace Collection 2023-02-13 | The Wallace Collection holds an impressive collection of vedute, or topographical views, of Venice by Canaletto and Guardi, and by artists working in Canaletto’s circle. In this talk, Dr Lelia Packer discusses a selection of these works in order to explore Venice as a major tourist destination during the 18th century. What did visitors come to see? What did they do during their visit? And, most importantly, how was the city recorded in paint for them?Follow the link below to learn more from Dr Packer about the views of Venice here at the Wallace Collection: youtu.be/ZZCN1ll3n-8
Conserving an 18th-Century Chest of Drawers The Wallace Collection 2023-02-02 | Join Senior Furniture Conservator, Jürgen Huber and Collection Care Assistant, Will Flawn, as they carry out the conservation of a dazzling French 18th-century chest of drawers.
Seminar in the History of Collecting: Creating the Bowes Museum The Wallace Collection 2023-01-31 | Title: Creating the Bowes Museum: collectors, dealers and auctions in mid-nineteenth-century ParisSpeaker: Dr Simon Spier (Curator, Ceramics and Glass 1600-1800, Victoria and Albert Museum, London)Abstract: Dr Simon Spier will explore the formation of the founding collection of decorative arts at The Bowes Museum, County Durham, amassed largely on the French art market in the 1860s and 70s. The museum’s founders, John Bowes (1811–1885) and Joséphine Coffin-Chevalier (1825–1874), are well known figures in the history of collecting, but less well known are the methods and networks they used to purchase their many art objects. Investigating in depth the dealers they sought advice from, the sale rooms they frequented and the other collectors they interacted with, this talk will show how the Bowes utilised a rapidly expanding market for decorative arts that allowed a new social class of collectors to form significant collections with relative ease.
Conserving our miniatures and illuminated manuscript cuttings The Wallace Collection 2023-01-09 | Join curator Dr Lucy Davis for a behind-the-scenes glimpse of our conservation treatment on a group of our miniatures. With conservator Alan Derbyshire, she will discuss how they were made, their unique qualities as objects and how they can be preserved for future generations.To see more of these small-scale masterpieces join Lucy Davis for January's Meet the Expert talk, where we will be taking a closer look at some of the miniatures in the Wallace Collection: youtu.be/fDo3SLLkczg
Seminar in the History of Collecting: Howard Carter and the Market for Egyptian Art, 1920–1940 The Wallace Collection 2022-11-29 | Title: Wonderfully Expensive Things: Howard Carter and the Market for Egyptian Art, 1920–1940Speaker: Tom Hardwick (Consulting Curator of Egyptology, Houston Museum of Natural Science, Houston, USA)Abstract: Howard Carter’s and Lord Carnarvon’s discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun in November 1922 was not just an archaeological landmark: it was also watched closely by the art market. Carter and Carnarvon were not just excavators, but avid collectors and canny dealers in Egyptian objects at a time when their status and values were changing. Exhibitions and auctions brought Egyptian objects to eager audiences anxious for new sensations and potential profits. One might think the tomb of Tutankhamun would be unaffected by this boom, but even excavated objects were subject to the vagaries of the market. Tutankhamun’s “wonderful things” were assessed and priced up from the moment the tomb was opened. Archival material reveals how objects from Tutankhamun’s tomb were monetized and offered for sale during Carter’s lifetime and after his death.
Spectacle in Venice in the 18th Century The Wallace Collection 2022-11-16 | In November’s Meet the Expert video Dr Lelia Packer, our Curator of Dutch, Italian, Spanish, German and Pre-1600 Paintings, explores how festivals and ceremonies transformed Venice into a spectacle during the eighteenth century and how these were beautifully captured in painting.To learn more join Dr Packer for November's Meet the Expert talk and discover other vedute, or topographical views, of Venice from the Wallace Collection: youtu.be/z_27e9Fzuko
Seminars in the History of Collecting: Paul Sandby’s Collection of Drawings The Wallace Collection 2022-11-01 | Title: Paul Sandby’s Collection of DrawingsSpeaker: Rosie Razzall (Curator of Drawings, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam)Abstract: The British draughtsman Paul Sandby (1731–1809) is most familiar for his watercolours, but less well-known is that he had a large collection of Old Master drawings. Numbering around 3000 sheets, the drawings are readily identified by his PS collector’s stamp (Lugt 2112), added when his collection was dispersed, mostly in three large sales after his death. No attempt has yet been made to reconstruct or examine the contents of Sandby’s collection of drawings, which in size and scope is easily comparable to eighteenth-century British collections such as those of Joshua Reynolds or Thomas Lawrence. In this talk, Rosie Razzall discusses Paul Sandby’s collection and his character as a collector.
Black Presence in the Wallace Collection The Wallace Collection 2022-10-21 | To mark Black History Month 2022, join Dr Janet Couloute for a virtual African Heritage tour of the Collection. Spanning 400 years of European art, in this talk Dr Couloute will place the presumed peripheral and unimportant black male and female figure centre stage. Through a closer look at how artists have created iconographies of blackness and whiteness, Dr Couloute will illustrate how museums such as the Wallace Collection, through more inclusive and open history telling, can encourage visitors to respond more imaginatively to such iconographies.About the Speaker:Dr Janet Couloute is a social work academic and art historian interested in revising and expanding current British art-historical canons. With a particular interest in works that are rarely discussed as visual indexes of ‘race’, she is currently working on a research project entitled Renaissance ‘Whiteness’: Reimaging ‘Race’ through the Prism of Early Modern Portraiture. Dr Couloute has also been a Tate guide for 20 years, and has developed an expertise in encouraging gallery audiences to engage with the histories of the Black presence in Europe.To read the research paper by Professor Judy Sund cited in this talk, please see: researchgate.net/publication/271818653_Middleman_Antoine_Watteau_and_Les_Charmes_de_la_Vie.
Seminar in the History of Collecting: Provenancing the Dragoon Vases The Wallace Collection 2022-09-27 | Title: Provenancing the Dragoon Vases: porcelain, architecture and monumentality in German antiquarianism (1700–1933)Speaker: Feng Schöneweiß (PhD Candidate, University of Heidelberg, Germany)Abstract: Architects and artisans make monuments, but provenance frames monumentality in the history of collections. This seminar explores how emerging recognition of provenance shaped public perception of monumentality through a study of the transcultural biography of the Dragoon Vases (Dragonervasen). Since 1900, generations of German antiquarians and museum professionals have celebrated what they have called Chinese monumental vases in their published writings, internal reports, and curatorial practices. Most notable are eighteen Dragoon Vases, which ‘enjoyed special fame without people actually being able to identify them’ in the early twentieth century. The name Dragoon Vases originated from the exchange of dragoon soldiers for porcelain objects between the Saxon and Prussian electors in 1717, but it took 150 years for the designation to emerge in German antiquarian and museological contexts. Yet, another century later, the notorious Stasi of the German Democratic Republic confiscated Helmuth Meißner’s (1903–1998) art collections in Dresden, which included a large blue-and-white Chinese porcelain vase. With a Palace Number ‘N:2’ and a zigzag line incised on the reverse of its lid, the vase has a manifest provenance from the porcelain collection amassed by Augustus the Strong (1670–1733) in the Dutch Palace, the institutional predecessor of the current Porcelain Collection, Dresden State Art Collections (SKD). Despite the Stasi’s insistence on selling the vase for foreign currency, the SKD successfully claimed it by invoking its value as a ‘nationally valuable cultural property’, a legal category designating objects of national significance for Germany’s cultural heritage. How did Chinese porcelain become monumental in German antiquarian thoughts and practices? The author seeks to answer the question by ‘provenancing’ the vases in their transcultural, architectural, and local contexts during the formative phases of monumentality from 1700 to 1933.
Meet the Expert: Celebrating 150 years of the ‘Wallace’ fountains The Wallace Collection 2022-09-22 | It is 150 years since the first of the iconic ‘Wallace’ fountains were installed in Paris in 1872, following the devastating upheavals of the Franco-Prussian War and Commune of 1870-71. The original fountains were gifted to the city of Paris by Sir Richard Wallace, who gained renown for his philanthropy on both sides of the Channel after inheriting a fortune from his likely father, the 4th Marquess of Hertford, in 1870. Join Barbara Lambesis and Suzanne Higgott, who will discuss the fountains from their Parisian origins to their celebrity status today.Follow the link below to learn more about the Society of The Wallace Fountains: wallacefountains.orgJoin Dr Lelia Packer for our next Meet the Expert talk and discover the story of the Wallace Collection's views of Venice: youtu.be/z_27e9Fzuko
The story of the Wallace fountain at Hertford House The Wallace Collection 2022-09-08 | What are the ‘Wallace’ fountains? Why are they named for Sir Richard Wallace? Why is one in the Wallace Collection’s forecourt? Join Curator Suzanne Higgot to find out.To learn more about the history of the 'Wallace' fountains, tune in to our live Meet the Expert discussion on 15 September at 13.00, where Suzanne will be joined by Barbara Lambesis, President of the Society of the Wallace Fountains: youtu.be/W8gq4XVROqY
Meet the Expert: A Master Armourer of Augsburg, Anton Peffenhauser The Wallace Collection 2022-08-10 | Anton Peffenhauser (1525-1603) was one of the most important armourers active in the great armour-making city of Augsburg throughout the second half of the sixteenth century. Active for more than fifty years, Peffenhauser must have enjoyed one of the longest working lifetimes of all Renaissance armourers. An astute businessman as well as a skilled craftsman, Peffenhauser led a large workshop with an almost unparalleled output, with scores of his armours preserved today in museums around the world. The Wallace Collection alone includes seven complete Peffenhauser armours, for the joust and tourney, as well as numerous other armour parts. His extraordinary achievements will be discussed by leading Peffenhauser expert Dr Holger Schuckelt of the Staatlichen Kunstsammlungen (State Art Museums), Dresden and Dr Tobias Capwell, Curator of Arms and Armour at the Wallace Collection.Image credit: Workshop of Anton Peffenhauser, Helmet of Jousting Armour, Augsburg (Germany), c. 1590 (A48), The Wallace Collection.
How to Make Your Own Theatre Box The Wallace Collection 2022-07-13 | Make your own 3D theatre box inspired by Fragonard’s The Swing.You will need: A4 black, coloured and decorated card, string, sellotape and glue, ruler and pencil, paint, knitting needle and a printout of The Swing.
Make Your Own Jumping Jack The Wallace Collection 2022-07-13 | Bring a museum object to life with your own Jumping Jack.You will need: String and thread, pencil and rubber, compass, masking and sellotape, glue, ruler and scissors, knitting needle, A4 card and newspaper cuttings, and a printed museum object.
Make Your Own Knight The Wallace Collection 2022-07-13 | Make your own pop-up knights in shining armour.You will need: A4 and A3 coloured card, gold card, tracing or greaseproof paper, scissors and glue, pencil, and knight on horseback templates.Templates: wallacecollection.org/documents/416/Tabletop_Tournament_Activity.pdf
Perspective The Wallace Collection 2022-07-13 | Understand perspective and create your own museum room.You will need: A4 coloured card and paper, scissors and glue, pen and pencil, ruler and string, printouts of paintings and other museum objects.
Experts Choice: Seven Armours from Augsburg The Wallace Collection 2022-07-08 | Join Tobias Capwell, Curator of Arms and Armour, and discover seven armours made by the 16th-century master armourer, Anton Peffenhauser.To learn more join us for this month's meet the expert talk, where Dr Capwell will be joined in conversation by Holger Schuckelt of the Staatlichen Kunstsammlungen (State Art Museums), Dresden: youtu.be/qwqJfnlPsnw
Seminar in the History of Collecting: The Collecting Habit of John Campbell, First Baron Cawdor The Wallace Collection 2022-07-01 | Title: Ancient and Modern: The Collecting Habit of John Campbell, First Baron Cawdor (1755-1821)Speaker: Dr John E. Davies, FRhistS (Independent Scholar)Abstract: This presentation looks at the collecting habits of John Campbell (1755–1821), first Baron Cawdor, of Stackpole Court, Pembrokeshire, and Cawdor Castle, Nairn. Campbell was a fairly typical late C18th connoisseur and collector of art and antiquities. He spent several years in Italy where he befriended artists and fellow collectors and bought a large number of works, including Old Masters, Roman sculptures, and especially ‘Etruscan’ vases. The latter included the Lante vase and the krater vase now known as the Cawdor Vase and housed in the Soane Museum. He displayed his ever-growing collection, highly praised by Flaxman, at a short-lived ‘museum’ which he established at his house in upper Oxford Street. However, Cawdor was also a collector of modern art, especially sculpture, and had a special relationship with one of Europe’s greatest artists, the sculptor Antonio Canova. Campbell was one of Canova’s earliest British patrons, and he commissioned several works from him, including the Psyche Reviv’d by Cupid’s kiss and the L’Amorino. Unfortunately, the Napoleonic wars determined that Campbell was never to see his early commissions arrive in Britain. But his patronage, and indeed his friendship with Canova never wavered. When, as the first baron Cawdor he revisited Rome in 1815, he spent several weeks in the daily company of the sculptor, and commissioned further work, including Hebe. At the same time, he became involved with Canova’s mission to repatriate Italian artwork looted by Napoleon.
Meet the Expert: Dutch Silver in the Wallace Collection and the Rijksmuseum The Wallace Collection 2022-06-20 | Join curator Ada de Wit and her guest Dirk Jan Biemond, Curator of Metalwork at the Rijksmuseum, as they discuss how Sir Richard Wallace and the Rijksmuseum acquired their remarkable silver collections, focusing on examples of Dutch silver. Live captions provided by Stagetext.
Meet the Expert: Letting Nature in The Wallace Collection 2022-06-20 | In the first decades of the eighteenth century, French designers, sculptors and craftsmen sought inspiration from nature for their innovative creations in the Régence and Rococo styles. Decorative motifs, derived from animals and plants, populated fashionable interiors and stimulated conversation. In this talk, Curatorial Assistant Félix Zorzo explores how decorative art pieces at the Wallace Collection reflect this interest in the natural world.Live captions provided by Stagetext.
Meet the Expert: David Roberts’s Travels The Wallace Collection 2022-06-20 | Victorian artist-adventurer David Roberts (1796-1864) travelled extensively in Europe, North Africa and the Middle East, creating countless images of sites and people in drawings, paintings, and prints. Join Professor Claudia Hopkins and Dr Akemi Luisa Herráez Vossbrink, as they discuss Roberts’s works in the Wallace Collection and those recently featured in the exhibition Romantic Spain: David Roberts and Genaro Pérez Villaamil (October 7, 2021- January 16, 2022) at Madrid’s Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando.Live captions provided by Stagetext.
Inspiring Walt Disney at the Wallace Collection The Wallace Collection 2022-06-16 | Drawing on outstanding artworks from the Collection and spectacular international loans, Inspiring Walt Disney highlights the exceptional talent and innovation of both Walt Disney Animation Studios artists and the creative pioneers of the French 18th century.In collaboration with New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, see the magic of Disney, as you have never seen it before…Book your tickets today: wallacecollection.org/art/exhibitions-displays/inspiring-walt-disney
Experts Choice: The Augsburg Service The Wallace Collection 2022-06-09 | Join Ada de Wit, Curator of Works of Art and Sculpture, to learn about this dazzling 18th-century toilet service.Find out more in June's Meet the Expert talk, in which Ada and her guest, Dirk Jan Biemond, Curator of Metalwork at the Rijksmuseum, discuss how Sir Richard Wallace and the Rijksmuseum acquired their remarkable silver collections, focusing on examples of Dutch silver: youtu.be/o_u1tga9FhU
Seminar in the History of Collecting: The Multiple Roles of Paul Casimir-Périer (1812–1897) The Wallace Collection 2022-06-08 | Title: Collector/Photographer/Art Critic: The Multiple Roles of Paul Casimir-Périer (1812–1897)Speaker: Dr Simon Kelly (Curator and Head of Department of Modern and Contemporary Art, Saint Louis Art Museum)Abstract: Paul Casimir-Périer (1812–1897), also known as Paul Périer, was one of the most important mid-nineteenth-century French collectors of Barbizon and Dutch seventeenth-century painting, as well as a pioneering photographer and significant art critic. His varied career provides a way into exploring the hybrid practice of the nineteenth-century collector. During the July Monarchy, Périer used his considerable inherited wealth to build up a prominent collection of Old Masters, which included Rembrandt’s Bathsheba at Her Bath, and contemporary paintings by Théodore Rousseau, Alexandre-Gabriel Decamps, Narcisse-Virgile Diaz de la Peña, Jules Dupré, and Richard Parkes Bonington. Périer’s collecting subsequently informed his practice as a controversial art critic in the Second Empire. Perhaps even more notably, it underpinned his output as an innovative landscape photographer and leading figure within the Société Française de Photographie.Drawing on extensive archival research, this presentation examines the formation and dispersal of Périer’s collections (many of his works were acquired by the 4th Marquess of Hertford and are now in the Wallace Collection) and the complex interplay between his collecting practice and his photography and writing. The presentation offers an opportunity to rediscover this fascinating but little-known figure of the nineteenth-century French art world.
What Is Rococo? The Wallace Collection 2022-05-27 | The Wallace Collection is full of Rococo art. But what does it look like and where does the word Rococo come from? Watch now to find out.Discover more via our website: wallacecollection.org/learn/families/learn-at-home
Experts Choice: Diana and Actaeons writing-desk The Wallace Collection 2022-05-10 | Join Félix Zorzo, Curatorial Assistant and cover for the 18th-century French Decorative Arts at the Wallace Collection, for an introduction to a mesmerising early 18th-century writing desk, currently on display in our temporary exhibition, Inspiring Walt Disney: The Animation of French Decorative Arts.For more from Felix join us for this month's Expert's Choice live talk, where we will be taking a look at the influence of the natural world on early eighteenth century French designers: youtu.be/cjYzfxvXqWc
Swing Time: Serendipitous Conversations about the Rococo - Fashion The Wallace Collection 2022-04-29 | Fragonard’s Les hasards heureux de l’escarpolette, known in English as The Swing, is a revered painting in the Wallace Collection and one of the most representative works of art of the entire French 18th century. To celebrate the gentle cleaning and restoration of this rococo icon, we have invited five art practitioners and five scholars to participate in a series of virtual conversations inspired by its key themes: Pink, Identity, Fashion, Play, and The Libertine.In this talk Dr Yuriko Jackall, haute-couture fashion designer Sami Nouri, curator Jessica Degain and fashion historian Hayley Edwards-Dujardin, explore how 18th-century fashions continue to resonate today.
Seminar in the History of Collecting: Philipp von Stosch (1691–1757) and his Circle The Wallace Collection 2022-04-29 | Title: Philipp von Stosch (1691–1757) and his Circle: Collecting and Studying of Ancient Engraved Gems, from Antiquarianism to Proto-ArchaeologySpeaker: Dr Paweł Gołyźniak (Institute of Archaeology, Jagiellonian University)Abstract: In this seminar Paweł Gołyźniak will trace and examine Philipp von Stosch’s (1691–1757) collecting, antiquarian and scholarly activities in terms of engraved gems on the basis of unknown pictorial (drawings) and archival sources. The discovery of nearly 2300 unknown gem drawings in the Princes Czartoryski Museum in Krakow gives an opportunity to present him as one of the most instrumental figures of eighteenth-century antiquarianism. The seminar will discuss Stosch’s outstanding collection of intaglios and glass gems, and most importantly his scholarly projects; starting from his celebrated book Gemmae antiquae caelatae published in 1724 in Amsterdam, through to his attempts to write a supplement to that study, documentation of his own collection of gems and other European gem cabinets, and, finally, the virtually unknown project Histoire universaille, meant to reflect the history, mythologies and customs of the ancient Egyptians, Etruscans, Greeks and Romans, combined with a reconstruction of the history of glyptic art.For all his enterprises Stosch commissioned large quantities of drawings, which were produced in a truly archaeological vein with attention paid to such issues as material, form, right proportions, state of preservation, provenance etc. of the reproduced gems. Often the gems received extensive commentaries explaining their iconography and providing analogies in sculpture, reliefs, wall paintings and coins. Relevant passages in ancient literary sources were also referenced. The study of Stosch’s scholarly activities considerably advances our understanding of the emergence of archaeology as a scientific discipline. The discovered pictorial documentation provokes us to hypothesise that Stosch, his collecting and scholarly enterprises greatly inspired and influenced Johann Joachim Winckelmann (1717–1768) in writing his first synthesis of ancient art (Geschichte der Kunst des Alterthums), published in 1764.
Experts Choice: David Roberts’s Spanish and Moroccan Travels The Wallace Collection 2022-04-12 | Join Enriqueta Harris Frankfort Curatorial Fellow, Dr Akemi Luisa Herráez Vossbrink and discover the Scottish artist, David Roberts, through a selection of his works held in the Wallace Collection.To learn more about Roberts follow the link below to this month's Meet the Expert talk, where Dr Herráez Vossbrink will be joined by Professor Claudia Hopkins, Director of Durham University’s Zurbarán Centre for Spanish and Latin American Art, as they discuss Roberts's travels throughout Spain, North Africa and the Middle East: youtu.be/l1x0LYy4ZEQ
Meet the Expert: The Joseph Plates The Wallace Collection 2022-04-09 | Made in Limoges, France by a prolific workshop that used the maker’s mark ‘IC’, the Joseph plates are a group of painted enamel plates dated to around 1580-1600 that illustrate the story of Joseph from the biblical book of Genesis. Join curator Suzanne Higgott and Dr Julia Poole, formerly a keeper in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, who will discuss the sources and significance of the Joseph plates, and the reasons for the popularity of this story in the later 16th century.For more from our Meet the Expert series join us next month, when Enriqueta Harris Frankfort Curatorial Fellow Dr Akemi Luisa Herráez Vossbrink, and her guest Professor Claudia Hopkins, Director of Durham University’s Zurbarán Centre for Spanish and Latin American Art, will discuss the works of artist and adventurer, David Roberts: youtu.be/l1x0LYy4ZEQ
Seminars in the History of Collecting: Gould: Gilded Age Glamour and the Duveen Taste in America The Wallace Collection 2022-03-30 | Title: The Lost George J. Gould Collection and the Beginning of Duveen Taste in AmericaSpeaker: John D. Ward (Head of Silver and Vertu Department, Sotheby’s, New York, USA)Abstract: George J. and Edith Gould were major collectors in Gilded Age America. They were among the very first Americans to live with Old Master paintings and French eighteenth-century furniture, sculpture, porcelain, and vertu, in interiors specifically created to display these collections. George’s early purchases, mostly from Agnew’s, included works by Constable, Romney, and Gerard Dou. By 1900 the collection boasted Rembrandt, Hals, and Van Dyck, Reynolds’ 'Strawberry Girl' and a Hobbema from the Demidoff Collection; in 1904 ten works were chosen to enhance the loan exhibit at the St. Louis World’s Fair.Complementing these works was furniture by Jacob and Cressent, Sèvres vases, gold boxes and miniatures, mostly supplied by Henry Duveen. From 1907 a new townhouse in New York was planned: architecture by Horace Trumbauer, interiors by Carlhian, contents largely by and the whole overseen by Henry and Joseph Duveen.Period photos and early inventories allow a reconstruction of the interior, with its full-length English portraits, Sèvres-mounted and Riesener furniture, rose du Barry Gobelins and matching Sèvres, sculptures by Foucou, Boizot and Pajou, and Clouet portraits.After the deaths of Edith in 1921 and George in 1923, Duveen purchased the bulk of the collection. Much was resold to his major clients of the 1920s and 30s, particularly Eleanor Elkins Rice, Henry E. Huntington, and Anna Dodge. Today the artworks are scattered, and the importance of this seminal collection - for the House of Duveen and for elite American taste - has been almost completely forgotten.
Two Painted Enamel Plates from Limoges The Wallace Collection 2022-03-01 | Join Suzanne Higgott, Curator of Glass, Limoges Painted Enamels, Earthenware and Early Furniture, in taking a close look at two jewel-like painted enamel plates made in Limoges in the sixteenth century.For more from Suzanne, join us for this month's live Meet the Expert talk, where she will be joined by former keeper in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Dr Julia Poole, in discussing the 'Joseph Plates' and artists who made them: youtu.be/a1XVRnOkm-w
Meet the Expert: The Gold Cups of Eternal Stability and the Celebration of the Chinese New Year The Wallace Collection 2022-02-23 | The Gold Cups of Eternal Stability are among the most extraordinary objects in the Wallace Collection. The Qianlong Emperor ordered them especially for the First Stroke Ceremony, performed on the New Year’s Day in the Forbidden City in Beijing. Their surface is covered with kingfisher feathers, a technique also used in decorating a spectacular headdress in the collection of the National Museum of Scotland. In their conversation, curators Dr Qin Cao and Ada de Wit will explore the fascinating history of the gold cups, the use of kingfisher feathers in decoration, and the celebration of New Year at the Chinese Qing court.For more from our Meet the Expert series of talks, join us next month where Suzanne Higgott, Curator of Glass, Limoges Painted Enamels, Earthenware and Early Furniture will be joined by former keeper in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Dr Julia Poole, in discussing the 'Joseph Plates'; a series of painted enamel plates dated to around 1580-1600: youtu.be/a1XVRnOkm-w
Meet the Expert: The Fragonard Project The Wallace Collection 2022-02-23 | Between 2019 and 2021, five of the Wallace Collection’s eight paintings by Jean-Honoré Fragonard were cleaned and restored. This project has led to new discoveries about Fragonard’s working methods and provides the possibility for new interpretations of his work. Join our Head of Curatorial and Curator of French Paintings, Dr Yuriko Jackall, as she discusses this project and gives her reading of The Swing and its place in Fragonard’s career. She will also describe the long shadow of Fragonard’s influence, and how the ups and downs of his glittering career indelibly shaped the way in which we understand his art and the rococo aesthetic today.
Meet the Expert: The Emperor’s New Armour The Wallace Collection 2022-02-23 | Join curator Dr Toby Capwell for a detailed look at the life, career and works of one of the greatest armourers who ever lived – Konrad Seusenhofer, master of the Imperial court workshop at Innsbruck in Austria, founded by the Emperor Maximilian I in 1505.Home to several examples of Seusenhofer’s work, The Wallace Collection has recently ‘gained’ a new masterpiece by him, a foot combat armour in the ‘Landsknecht’ style long thought to have been made in Augsburg, but now proven to be the work of the Emperor’s court armourer. Discover how this fabulous ‘puffed and slashed’ costume armour has revealed its true identity – a work by one of the most technologically advanced and artistically sophisticated armourers of the Renaissance.For more information about Konrad Seusenhofer and his role in the court of Emperor Maximilian I, watch our latest Expert's Choice video: youtu.be/FnKfTfIfBnM
Meet the Expert: Honed in Herat The Wallace Collection 2022-02-23 | Join Arthur Bijl, Hutton McRoberts Assistant Curator of Ottoman, Middle Eastern and Asian Arms and Armour for a talk on a unique dagger made in medieval Herat. Find out how this dagger, far from simply being a weapon of war, is the product of a complex visual culture patronised by the city’s reigning monarch. Arthur will draw parallels between contemporary architecture, manuscript painting and leather working to show how the dagger is positioned in art history.
