The Wallace Collection and Manchester Square
Why is it significant?
Across the gardens of Manchester Square stands Hertford House, a grand Georgian mansion with a pillared porch. It looks like a private house because it was one, and inside the paintings, furniture, porcelain and armour are still arranged as if the family had just gone out for a walk.
Key Facts
| Place | The Wallace Collection and Manchester Square |
|---|---|
| Address | Hertford House, Manchester Square, London W1U 3BN, United Kingdom |
| Geo Coordinates | 51.51750, -0.15300 |
| Part of Walk | From 221B to Wimpole Street: Sherlock Holmes, Dickens and the Beatles in Marylebone, London |
| Generated | Generated |
Across the gardens of Manchester Square stands Hertford House, a grand Georgian mansion with a pillared porch. It looks like a private house because it was one, and inside the paintings, furniture, porcelain and armour are still arranged as if the family had just gone out for a walk.
The collection is a family saga in five generations. It was built up by the Marquesses of Hertford, above all by the fourth Marquess, a reclusive collector who lived mostly in Paris and bought French art when it was out of fashion. He left everything to Richard Wallace, who was almost certainly his illegitimate son. In 1897 Wallace's widow, Lady Wallace, bequeathed the collection to the nation, on condition that it stay together, and it opened as a public museum in 1900.
Inside, look for the Laughing Cavalier, painted by Frans Hals in 1624. He is not actually laughing, only smiling under his moustache, and nobody knows who he was. Then find Fragonard's The Swing: a young woman in a frothy pink dress kicks her shoe into the air, while her admirer, hidden in the roses below, enjoys a rather improper view. It is one of the most famous flirtations in the history of art.
Manchester Square also has its place in music history. On this square stood EMI House, the headquarters of the Beatles' record company, and in 1963 the photographer Angus McBean photographed the four of them grinning down over the stairwell for the cover of their first album, Please Please Me. Six years later they came back, long-haired and bearded, to recreate the same shot. That second picture ended up on their famous red and blue compilation albums.
So in one small square you have Old Masters and the Fab Four, a marquess's secret son and a stairwell that became an icon. Leave the square at its south-east corner and walk east along Wigmore Street, to a building with an iron and glass canopy stretched over the pavement.