The Gallery at Cleveland House: Displaying Art and Society in Late Georgian London

The Marquess and Marchioness of Stafford opened a gallery at Cleveland House in London in 1806 to display their Old Master paintings to the public, and a ticket to the Wednesday afternoon openings was a sought-after prize. This book explores the gallery's interior through its material culture, including paintings, furniture, silver oil lamps, flower arrangements, and printed catalogues and guidebooks, and presents it as a methodological case study on how the display of art in the 19th century was shaped by notions about public and private space, domesticity, and the role art galleries played in the formation of national culture. It also explains how and why magnificent private galleries and the artworks and objects they contained gripped the public imagination during a critical period of political and cultural transformation during and after the Napoleonic Wars.

Format: Hardback
Length: 248 pages
Publication date: 25 July 2024
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC

The Marquess and Marchioness of Stafford opened a gallery at Cleveland House in London in 1806 to showcase their renowned collection of Old Master paintings to the public. Tickets to the gallery's Wednesday afternoon openings were highly coveted, providing access to the collection and the house's stunning interior, accompanied by artists, celebrities, and members of Britain's elite. This book delves into the gallery's interior through its abundant material culture, including paintings in gilded frames, furniture, silver oil lamps, flower arrangements, and numerous printed catalogues and guidebooks that made the gallery visible to a wider audience. Through detailed analysis of these objects and a wide range of other visual, material, textual, and archival sources, the book presents the gallery at Cleveland House as a methodological case study on how the display of art in the 19th century was shaped by notions about public and private space, domesticity, and the role art galleries played in the formation of national culture. In doing so, the book also explains how and why magnificent private galleries and the artworks and objects they contained gripped the public imagination during a critical period of political and cultural transformation during and after the Napoleonic Wars. Combining historical, cultural, and material analysis, the book will be essential reading for researchers in British art in the Regency period, museum studies, collecting studies, social history, and the histories of interior decoration and design in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Dimension: 234 x 156 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781350372757