Wallace Collection (London)

Not even ten minutes on foot away from the hustle and bustle of Oxford Street the connoisseur tourist finds Manchester Square with the Hartford House on one side. The building contains one of the world’s finest private collections ever assembled by a single family, and since 1897 when the widow of Sir Richard Wallace died leaving to Britain its largest private bequest ever, no artefact has been taken away or added. When I arrived there on a Sunday afternoon a free guided tour had just begun. The guide was clearly in love with the house, the art collection and the rococo period from which most artefacts come which was a good thing because her ...

It was a hot June day, the sun shining down on Oxford Street crowds, and it seemed such a waste to be stuck shopping on a day like this. I’d read that the Wallace Collection had been re-opened after extensive modernisation and I knew it was somewhere behind John Lewis, in Manchester Square, so off I went. The Square looked cool and shady in the sun and office workers and local builders were relaxing on the grass. Across the Square the pillars of Hertford House offered respite from the sun and a promise of an hour spent wandering around an interesting exhibition so in I went. I went up to the desk in the entrance and the first surprise was that there ...

After years living in London, I finally visited the Wallace Collection this weekend, and am really glad I did. It's just a few streets directly behind Selfridges, on a peaceful garden square. The Collection is in Hertford House, which takes up most of the north side of the square. In its small front garden is a water fountain, copy of fountains donated to Paris. This sets the tone for the slightly quirky collection inside. You can hire an audio guide, but even without this there are information sheets in each room. The art collection covers a wide range of paintings, the most famous of which is the Laughing Cavalier: one of a number of various genres ...