Last week I took photographs at the
Wallace Collection with a view to perhaps doing a bespoke range of jewellery for their shop. I do know the Wallace Collection – which I would sum up to the uninitiated as “ The Laughing Cavalier, clocks, porcelain and armour”! Okay so it is in fact much more than that but that is what stayed with me from previous visits! And it isn’t such a bad summing up as it does have all these things, and The Laughing Cavalier is a great painting and would make the trip to Manchester Square worthwhile even if there were very little else there! The Wallace Collection is a jewel of a museum, and I think, though maybe I’m wrong in this, one of London’s hidden treasures. Well in a city with such a wealth of wonders it is hard to fight your corner!
What I had forgotten was that there are many other wonderful paintings, and a great number of beautiful miniatures. Also I had perhaps paid scant attention to the armour as it isn’t something that generally excites me. However in my search for beautiful details that might transfer well to my work I looked much more closely at the fabulously decorated stocks of rifles, and poignees of swords (that’s handles to you). These were presumably how as a wealthy man you demonstrated your prosperity and position and the craftsmanship is superb. When people of great wealth buy the designer names of today are they getting that level of finery – I can’t really imagne they are. Now it’s all about the brand and the name – all brought together in that much coveted "designer logo".
So if you have a spare hour or two and are in the vicinity of Bond Street and have had enough of worshipping at the altar of Mamon, pop along to The Wallace Collection and marvel at the skills of our ancestors.
