Gallery at Cleveland House, The: Displaying Art and Society in Late Georgian London (Material Culture of Art and Design)

In 1806, the Marquess and Marchioness of Stafford opened a gallery at Cleveland House, London, to display their internationally-renowned collection of Old Master paintings to the public.A ticket to the gallery’s Wednesday afternoon openings was a sought-after prize, granting access to the collection and the house’s dazzling interior in the company of artists, celebrities, and Britain’s elite.This book explores the gallery's interior through the lens of its abundant material culture, including paintings in gilded frames, furniture, silver oil lamps, flower arrangements, and the numerous printed catalogues and guidebooks that made the gallery visible to those who might never cross its threshold. Through detailed analysis of these objects and a wide range of other visual, material, textual and archival sources, the book presents the gallery at Cleveland House as a methodological case study on how the display of art in the 19th century was shaped by notions about public and private space,