Horace Walpole (1717–1797) was the youngest son of Robert Walpole, first earl of Orford and prime minister under both George I and George II. Horace’s birthright placed him at the center of society and politics, and of literary, aesthetic, and intellectual circles. His brilliant letters and other writings have made him the best-known commentator on social, political, and cultural life in eighteenth-century England. In his own day, he was most famous for his personal collections, which were displayed at Strawberry Hill, his pioneering Gothic-revival house on the banks of the Thames at Twickenham, outside London, and through which he constructed narratives of English art and history.
This groundbreaking exhibition sought to evoke the breadth and importance of Walpole’s collections at Strawberry Hill by reassembling an astonishing variety of his objects, including rare books and manuscripts, antiquities, paintings, prints and drawings, furniture, ceramics, arms and armor, and curiosities. They were drawn from international public and private collections as well as those of the Center and Yale’s Lewis Walpole Library in Farmington, Connecticut.
Venues
Yale Center for British Art:
October 15, 2009–January 3, 2010
Victoria and Albert Museum:
March 6–July 4, 2010
View works from the collection included in this exhibition here.
Credits
Horace Walpole’s Strawberry Hill was organized by the Center, the Lewis Walpole Library, and the Victoria and Albert Museum. The exhibition was curated by Michael Snodin, Research Fellow at the Victoria and Albert Museum and Chairman of the Strawberry Hill Trust; the organizing curators at Yale were Cynthia Roman, Curator of Prints, Drawings, and Paintings at the Lewis Walpole Library, and Eleanor Hughes, Assistant Curator of Exhibitions and Publications at the Center.
The exhibition was generously supported by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Top image
Horace Walpole’s Strawberry Hill installation, Yale Center for British Art, photo by Richard Caspole
Extended reading
Horace Walpole’s Strawberry Hill
Edited by Michael Snodin with the assistance of Cynthia Roman