Wallace Collecction

Today we visited the Wallace Collection, which was housed in Hertford House, Manchester Square, London.   Not far from Oxford Street, and one street off Baker Street.

 First stop was Oxford Circus.    And a step into another world, far removed from Swanley and Joyden's Wood.   A world of bright lights, glamour and money.   Opulence all around.   And seemingly endless lines of red buses and black cabs.

John Lewis, all glitter and bright lights, and goods for sale, spread over six floors, but no battery for my Samsung camera.

Christmas decorations hanging down from the 5th floor.

Elaborate window displays, which make the Myer Christmas window displays in Melbourne look like poor relations.   And people queue to see the Myer displays.

Selfridges, a very ornate and grand front, but with a dreadful sixties concrete building behind the front facade.    

 Finally we arrived at Hertford House, after a detour into a cafe for lunch, and to watch all the people working on their tablets or telephones.   Free wifi.

Hertford House once belonged to the Marquesses of Hertford, five of them in fact. The 4th Marquess lived in Paris, and used Herford House only as a storage place for his art collection. 

The house was finally purchased from the 5th Marquess by the illegimate son of the 4th Marquess, Sir Richard Wallace, who then used the house to assemble the art collected by the four Marquesses, plus his own additions to the collections.

The collection comprises paintings, ceramics, miniatures, furniture and armoury. Some of the collection was acquired during the French Revolution, including some of Marie Antoinette's furniture.

  The staircase above and rooms below are opulent in design and full of treasures.  Walter standing in the room, and trying to make up his mind about what he should look at first.

From one opulent room to the next.   Such treasures.   A new Versailles palace.

 Looking through the windows of the 'Smoking Room' and out onto the courtyard.

The inner courtyard contained toilets (each toilet was a small bathroom), lecture rooms and restaurant.   Quite expensive, but a delightful place for a leisurely lunch.

I think the Armoury contained more suits of armour, muskets and swords than the Tower of London, but of course not Henry VIII's suits of armour, the thin one and the enormously large one.

Amazingly Franz Hals 'The Laughing Cavalier' was displayed in one of the rooms.  Such a famous painting.  I remember laborously working on a copy of this painting, from my  'painting by numbers' kit when I was a teenager.   The ruffle alone had an extensive  variety of shades of white.   I bought a post card as a souvenir.

I am standing in front of Hertford House, in my padded coat, and looking very fat.   It was the coat, definitely.  

The Wallace Collection.  A really worthwhile place to visit.   And Oxford Street too.

My word for the day was 'opulence'.