Museums & Attractions

Search what's on

Advanced

Wallace Collection
Until Aug 31 2010
Wallace Collection, Manchester Sq, London, W1U 3BN
'The Laughing Cavalier' by Franz Hals
By Lisa Mullen

Posted: Mon Jan 28
Sex and death. That’s what smacks you in the eye when you visit the Wallace Collection. The sumptuous displays which crowd the walls and cabinets of this magnificent eighteenth-century mansion simply writhe with flesh, from the legions of smug, dimpled cherubs, to the battalions of malevolent cupids, lusciously naked goddesses and nipple-heavy ‘allegories of love’. In this context, saints and madonnas seem cast in a lascivious light – even portraits of well-fed aristocrats seem to arch a saucy eyebrow. Among them, jostling for space, is the constant gleam of armour and weaponry – medieval and Oriental – cold, pragmatic instruments of warfare from an unambiguously hands-on era. Among the paintings, too, death is everywhere: battle scenes; martyrdoms; a surprising proliferation of artful still lifes of dead game.

Walking into an upstairs gallery filled with restful Canalettos is a positive relief; you want to take big lungfuls of those humbling Venetian skies. It’s no surprise to learn that this part of the collection was started by a man with different tastes: Francis Seymour-Conway (1719-94), the first Marquess of Hertford, picked up six Canalettos and commissioned two portraits of his daughters by Joshua Reynolds, but spent most of his time engaged in politics and diplomacy. His son, the second Marquess, wasn’t bitten by the bug: he only added a couple more works by Reynolds and a Gainsborough, but he did buy Hertford House on Manchester Square in Marylebone, which now houses the collection.

It was with the third Marquess that things got interesting. To his father’s distress, he managed to increase the family’s wealth (and jeopardise its respectability) by marrying Maria Fagnani, the illegitimate daughter of a former dancer. Both the fourth Duke of Queensberry and his associate George Selwyn thought Maria was their daughter and left her fortunes in their wills, and though she soon became estranged from the Marquess, her money helped him to live a life of such famous dissipation that Thackeray used him as the basis of the sinister Lord Steyne in ‘Vanity Fair’. As well as scooping up armfuls of Sèvres porcelain, gilt bronzes and French furniture – conveniently flooding the market thanks to the French revolution – the third Marquess spent his working life helping the Prince of Wales to amass important additions to the Royal Collection.

By the time the fourth Marquess inherited the title in 1842, he was one of the richest men in Europe – and decided, on balance, that he didn’t need to be burdened by work of any kind. Neurotic and reclusive, he spent the final 30 years of his life filling his boots with Old Masters, miniatures, gold boxes, tapestries, sculptures and antique weaponry, and it’s his eye for a well-turned buttock which accounts for the sensuous character of the collection.

He never married, but left the art to his illegitimate son, Sir Richard Wallace – who had worked for him as his saleroom advisor – and the title went to a distant cousin. Wallace added lots more arms and armour as well as many medieval and Renaissance pieces to the collection, and put it on show to the public in Bethnal Green, where it caused a sensation. It was his widow – a former shop girl who had been his mistress for more than 30 years before he married her – who bequeathed the house and its contents to the nation in 1897.

This generosity allows modern visitors, apart from marvelling at the art, to drift through these beautiful rooms, dripping with chandeliers, opulent mirrors and draperies, all of which add to the headrush of sensory bombardment. You can take art classes or eat lunch in the elegant glazed courtyard – you can even have your wedding reception here.

It’s tempting to read the collection as the record of one family’s downward spiral; solid establishment figures giving way to dissipated hoorays too busy chucking money about to produce a proper heir. But that’s not fair, of course. In amassing this collection and then donating it to the nation, they’ve done us a fantastic service. Along with the two Titians, the four Rembrandts, three Rubenses, four Van Dycks, Hals’s ‘The Laughing Cavalier’, the 2,370 pieces of armour and armoury, and the rest, the Marquesses of Hertford have bequeathed an intensely rich experience which is quite different from anything you’ll find in the National Gallery or London’s other major public spaces.

Add your comment to this listing

- Bookmark
- |
- Send to a friend

Details
Wallace Collection,Manchester Sq, London, W1U 3BN
, UK

Geo: 51.517694, -0.153106
020 7563 9551
Category: Museums & Attractions
Times: Mon-Sun 10am-5pm
Travel: Bond Street