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Wallace Collection
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==Interior== [[File:The Wallace Collection - Front Hall.jpg|thumb|right|Front Hall]] ===Ground Floor=== ====Hall==== The Entrance Hall contains marble busts of the three principal founders of the Wallace Collection: Richard Seymour-Conway, 4th Marquess of Hertford (1800–1870), his son, Sir Richard Wallace (1818–1890) and in the lobby, Lady Wallace, who bequeathed the contents of Hertford House to the British nation on her death in 1897. The room has retained the aspect it had in Sir Richard Wallace's day more than any other room in the building. ====Front State Room==== ''Displays: Portraits and Porcelain'' [[File:The Wallace Collection - Front State Room.jpg|thumb|The Front State Room – architecturally restored to its appearance in 1890 with much of the original furnishings returned]] This room reveals the opulence of the London town house in the 1870s and sets the scene for visitors to the Wallace Collection. The State Rooms were the grandest rooms in the house, in which the most important visitors were received. When it was the home of Sir Richard and Lady Wallace, visitors to Hertford House first entered the Front State Room, then, as now, hung with portraits. Two items of the modern furniture seen in the room in 1890 were not part of the collection gifted by Lady Wallace and are no longer present, but the mounted [[porcelain]] displayed on the cabinets and the [[chandelier]], made by [[Jean-Jacques Caffiéri]] in 1571, have been returned to the room.<ref>{{cite book |title=The Wallace Collection |date=2012 |publisher=Scala |location=London |isbn=978-185759-909-1 |page=16}}</ref> ====Back State Room==== ''Displays: The Rococo at the time of Louis XV and Madame de Pompadour'' The Back State Room is today dedicated to the patronage of King Louis XV (1715–1774) and his mistress, Madame de Pompadour. It displays some of the prominent examples in the Wallace Collection of art in the [[rococo]] style. Sir Richard Wallace used the Back State Room to entertain guests at Hertford House. During his lifetime it had wooden boiserie panelling on the wall; the great chandelier, by [[Jacques Caffieri|Jacques Caffiéri]], dating from 1751, remains in the room. ====Dining Room==== [[File:The Wallace Collection - Dining Room.jpg|thumb|upright|Dining Room]] ''Displays: Eighteenth-century still lifes and portraits'' The room contains masterworks of French 18th-century portraiture by [[Jean-Marc Nattier|Nattier]] and [[Jean-Antoine Houdon|Houdon]] and two oil sketches by [[Jean François de Troy]], for decoration of Louis XV's dining room in Fontainebleau, shown to the king for approval. ====Billiard Room==== [[File:The Wallace Collection - Billiard Room.jpg|thumb|right|Billiard Room]] ''Displays: The Decorative Arts under Louis XIV'' ====Breakfast Room==== ''Visitor Reception and Cloakroom'' This room was formerly Sir Richard and Lady Wallace's breakfast room. In 1890, it contained a large cabinet filled with Sèvres porcelain dinner wares, probably more for use than decoration, and sixteen Dutch pictures. The French chimneypiece in this room was made in the mid-18th century and installed in this room when the house was modified for Sir Richard and Lady Wallace. ====Housekeeper's Room==== ''Wallace Collection Shop'' This room was occupied during Sir Richard and Lady Wallace's lifetime by the family's housekeeper. Lady Wallace's housekeeper was Mrs Jane Buckley, a Londoner by birth. There were over thirty servants, including housemaids, kitchen maids, a lady's maid, a butler, footmen, a valet, coachmen, a groom and stable lads. ====Oriental Armoury==== [[File:The Wallace Collection - Oriental Armoury.jpg|thumb|right|Oriental Armoury]] ''Displays: East European, Turkish and Indo-Persian Arms, Armour and Works of Arts'' The Oriental arms and armour in the Wallace Collection were largely collected by the 4th Marquess of Hertford in the 1860s, the last decade of his life. Like many of his contemporaries, Sir Richard Wallace used this material to bring Oriental exoticism, as it was then considered, into his fashionable London house. The Oriental Armoury was displayed on the first floor of Hertford House. Trophies of arms and armour from India, the Middle East, the lands of the old Ottoman Empire, and the Far East, patterned the walls of the Oriental Armoury, whilst the ceiling was decorated with a pattern of gold stars on a deep blue background. ====European Armoury I==== [[File:The Wallace Collection - European Armoury I.jpg|thumb|right|European Armoury I]] ''Displays: Medieval and Renaissance Arms and Armour (tenth to sixteenth centuries)'' Sir Richard Wallace acquired most of his European armour in 1871, when he bought the collections of the comte Alfred Emilien de Nieuwekerke, Minister of Fine Arts to Napoleon III and director of the Louvre, as well as the finest parts of the collection of [[Samuel Rush Meyrick|Sir Samuel Rush Meyrick]], a pioneering collector and scholar of arms and armour.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.artfund.org/whats-on/museums-and-galleries/wallace-collection|title=The Wallace Collection|website=Art Fund}}</ref> The arms and armour collections are today recognised as among the finest in the world. During Sir Richard Wallace's lifetime, this room formed part of the stables with the grooms' bedrooms on a mezzanine floor. Sir Richard's European arms and armour were displayed in one large gallery, today's West Gallery III, on the first floor, directly above European Armoury I. ====European Armoury II==== [[File:Otto Henry's armour.jpg|thumb|European Armoury II]] ''Displays: Renaissance Arms and Armour (fifteenth to seventeenth centuries)'' The Wallace Collection contains some of the most spectacular Renaissance arms and armour in Britain. All of the richest and most powerful noblemen of the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries commissioned beautifully decorated weapons and armour, not just for war, but also for use in the awe-inspiring jousts, tournaments and festivals of the time. Fine arms and armour were considered works of art as much as warlike equipment. Displayed in this gallery are some of the finest examples of the armourer's art, exquisite sculptures richly embellished with gold and silver. This space was formerly part of Sir Richard Wallace's stables. ====European Armoury III==== ''Displays: Later Arms and Armour (sixteenth to nineteenth centuries)'' The array of sporting guns, rifles and pistols in this room includes a large number of extravagantly decorated 16th- and early-17th-century wheel-lock firearms, together with an impressive group of magnificent civilian flint-lock guns of the Napoleonic era. Several of the weapons here were made for European rulers, including Louis XIII and Louis XIV of France and Tsar Nicholas I of Russia. It is a major collection of early firearms in the United Kingdom. This space was formerly part of Sir Richard Wallace's coach house and stable yard. ====Sixteenth-Century Gallery==== ''Displays: The Collector's Cabinet'' The Sixteenth-Century Gallery houses works of art from the Medieval and Renaissance periods and a group of important Renaissance paintings. This part of the Wallace Collection was mainly assembled by Sir Richard who, like many 19th-century collectors, was fascinated by the art and history of Europe during the Middle Ages and Renaissance. The Sixteenth-Century Gallery comprised two smaller rooms during Sir Richard and Lady Wallace's lifetime. The contemporary photograph shows how one room was arranged by Sir Richard as a cabinet of curiosities, with paintings and maiolica densely hung on the walls and smaller works of art kept in cases or inside Renaissance cabinets. The other room, known as the Canaletto Room, was used to display the collection of paintings by Canaletto. ====Smoking Room==== ''Displays: Medieval, Renaissance and Baroque Works of Art'' The Smoking Room exhibits paintings and works of art from the Medieval and Renaissance periods, including the greater part of Sir Richard Wallace's collection of Italian Renaissance maiolica. Sir Richard Wallace would have invited his male guests to the Smoking Room after dinner, to discuss affairs of the day over an enjoyable pipe or cigar. The room had oriental interiors, with walls lined with Turkish-style tiles made by the [[Minton, Hollins & Co.|Minton factory]] in Stoke-on-Trent, the floor laid with a patterned mosaic. A small section of this interior survives in the alcove at the north end of the room. This was not only a highly fashionable look for a late Victorian smoking room but also practical, ensuring the smell of smoke did not linger in any fabric furnishings. ===First Floor=== ====Landing==== The Landing serves as the main orientation point on the first floor. It is hung with mythological and pastoral paintings by Boucher and is also perhaps the best place to admire the wrought iron work of the staircase balustrade, made in 1719 for the Royal bank in Paris. Hertford House was built in 1776–78 for the 4th Duke of Manchester. After a brief spell as the Spanish Embassy, it was bought by the 2nd Marquess of Hertford in 1797. He added the conservatory, in place of a Venetian window on the Landing and two first-floor rooms on each wing. ====Great Gallery==== [[File:City of Westminster - The Wallace Collection - 20220209162742.jpg|thumb|The Great Gallery]] ''Displays: Old Masters'' {{-}} ====Large Drawing Room==== [[File:Wallace Collection Large Drawing Room.jpg|thumb|Large Drawing Room ]] ''Displays: French furniture.'' Contains some of the most spectacular works by the French furniture-maker, [[Andre-Charles Boulle]] {{-}} ====Small Drawing Room==== [[File:The Small Drawing Room.jpg|thumb|The Small Drawing Room]] {{-}} ====East Drawing Room==== ====Oval Drawing Room==== [[File:Wallace Collection-Oval Drawing Room.jpg|thumb|Oval drawing room]] ''Displays: French furniture and paintings by [[François Boucher]]'' {{-}} ===Lower Ground Floor=== ====Porphyry Court==== The Porphyry Court was little more than a rather dismal back yard until 2000, when it was transformed by being doubled in size and provided with a dramatic pair of flights of stairs.
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