Cathy's Art Diary

Fascinating online lecture from the Wallace Collection looking at the drinking fountains which Sir Richard Wallace commissioned for the city of Paris. The talk marked 150 years since the first fountain was installed and brought together Suzanne Higgott from the gallery and Barbara Lambesis from the Society of the Wallace Fountains. Higgott took us through the design and the commissioning of the fountains and how they are based on French Renaissance and Neo-classical models. She outlined the symbolism on them. Lambesis then talked about how her enthusiasm for the fountains came about and the celebrations for the anniversary in Paris. She also introduced us to the Society of Wallace Fountains and I was impressed that as well as aiming to preserve and maintain the pieces it also promotes philanthropy in the same spirit and making them a symbol for global and equal rights to clean water. I must admit I hadn’t known about these fountains before booking the talk and had popped to se...

Interesting exhibition at the   Wallace Collection looking at items collected by Sir Richard Wallace to mark the   200th anniversary of his birth.   Wallace had been private secretary to the 4th Marquise of Hertford and unexpectedly inherited his fortune and art collection although it is thought that he might have been his illegitimate son. Wallace had been a collector in his own right but this fortune allowed him to buy on a huge scale. His taste was for Medieval and Renaissance decorative art and armour. I loved the still life by Desgoffe of his collection with a number of the items shown in it displayed in the exhibition including a wooden Hercules by Francesco Pomarano mentioned in a 1560 history of Padua along with a shield made for Henry II of France in 1558-9. I loved a pair of small wax portraits like wonderful 3D Renaissance portraits also St Hubert’s hunting horn which had been given to Charles the Bold in 1468. However my favourite item was a s...