Behind-the-scenes tour of the Wallace Collection Library and Archives tracing the lives of the women who shaped the collection.
The Wallace Collection is opening up its library and archives for a guided tour on Tuesday 10 November, from 1:00pm to 2:00pm. It's called Women of the Wallace Collection, and it takes you behind the scenes of the house to trace the lives of the women who shaped the collection.
The tour starts with Lady Wallace, who left the house and everything in it to the nation in 1897. She did it on one strict condition: none of the objects were ever to leave. That single decision turned the grand mansion in the heart of London into a public art gallery and a museum of military armour and weapons, and it's why the collection stays together in one place rather than being split up across different galleries.
From there, the tour looks at the women who came after. The archive holds the stories of the first female visitors to Hertford House, and you'll see their names and faces in the records. Among them is the American collector Isabella Stewart Gardner, and the suffragist and art historian Lady Dilke. Their presence is still there in the historic photographs, rare books and archival papers that the tour draws on.
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It's a chance to see the collection from the inside, following the paper trail of the women who helped make it what it is. The tour runs from 1:00pm to 2:00pm on Tuesday 10 November at The Wallace Collection, Hertford House, Manchester Square, London W1U 3BN, and tickets are £11.
