The Mansion House - Samuel Collection
22nd February '10
In 1998 Chelsea Lighting Design was invited to The Mansion House to present proposals for improvements to the lighting of the Harold Samuel Collection of pictures.
The presentation was successful and over a period of several months we were engaged on this challenging project in collaboration with the Curator and staff of the Guildhall Art Gallery and representatives of English Heritage.
The Samuel Collection
The Harold Samuel Collection, comprising 84 seventeenth-century Dutch and Flemish paintings, has been described as the finest private collection of such works to be formed in Britain during the last century. It includes paintings by such masters as Frans Hals, Nicolaes Maes and Jacob van Ruisdael, acquired by Lord Samuel for his personal pleasure and to hang in his home, Wych Cross. The collection was bequeathed to the City of London on his death in 1987 and through the generous decision of Lady Samuel the pictures were offered immediately to be hung permanently in the Lord Mayors residence, Mansion House.
The Mansion House
The Mansion House is one of the grandest surviving Georgian town palaces in London, with magnificent interiors containing elaborate plasterwork and carved timber ornament. It is unique as the only purpose-built home of the Lord Mayor of the City of London, the first of whom, Sir Crispin Gascoigne, took up residence in 1752. It provides not only living and working space for the Lord Mayor and his household but also room for large ceremonial entertainments and banquets.
It underwent refurbishment work in 1991-93 when structural repair, careful conservation and redecoration were carried out.
acknowledgements:-
The Harold Samuel Collection by Peter C. Sutton;
