Collecting

What is a Cabinet of Curiosity?

July 8, 2024

One of my favourite things that I spotted in the second half of the third season of Bridgerton was the presence of cabinets of curiosity in Penelope and Colin’s sitting room. It seems the perfect set addition for our intrepid and intellectually engaged couple (I tried to find a still of the set, but couldn’t!): read more
Mini-Post | Waddesdon Manor

October 5, 2022

Forever one of the country houses I’m most interested in, welcome to Waddesdon Manor, a French château in Buckinghamshire. Waddesdon was built by Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild and completed in 1883 – he wanted somewhere to escape from London to. (Very nice if you can!) As you may guess from the style, the architect was read more
Mini-Post | The Getty Villa

November 27, 2021

“One could say, ‘Go to Pompeii and Herculaneum and see Roman villas the way they are now – then go to Malibu and see the way they were in ancient times.’” J. Paul Getty, Los Angeles Times, 1974 The Getty Villa was the brainchild of J. Paul Getty (1892-1976), who made his fortune in oil read more
The Lightner Museum: A Curious Place in St. Augustine

February 18, 2020

Welcome to the Lightner Museum, a museum in which the architecture and spaces within the building are as interesting as the collection itself. When we planned our trip to St. Augustine in Florida I was so excited to go and have explore this place, because I’m not sure where else you could be viewing nineteenth-century read more
Magical and Marvellous Museo Cerralbo

March 18, 2019

A few weeks ago I went to visit my beautiful treasured friend who lives in Madrid and she took us to this absolutely incredible museum that I had never heard of before – Museo Cerralbo. Located close to the Temple de Debod, you would probably walk past it without realising the treasures inside. The museum read more
“C’est mon plaisir” – Isabella Stewart Gardner and her collection

April 10, 2018

Isabella Stewart Gardner by John Singer Sargent, 1888, oil on canvas (Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum P30WI) Above the central portal to the Isabella Stewart Gardner museum is her motto: “C’est mon plaisir” (“it is my pleasure”) This sums up perfectly the collection housed at Fenway Court: a unique and beautiful museum created by a unique read more