So where were we. Oh yes, we were at the Bellagio's gallery exhibit on Chatsworth, the home of the Duke of Devonshire. Chatsworth, located in Darbyshire, is one of the most-visited private homes in Europe according to the Bellagio website promoting the exhibit. Which, by the way, the website is extremely disappointing. I was hoping to be able to link to photos of some of the objects on display, but they have almost nothing and hardly any text either. There's a little bit more in the brochure, which fortunately Georg saved. I guess they wanted us to shell out for the exhibit catalog. I was tempted but, at $65, not that tempted.
Bellagio said that the house was Jane Austen's inspiration for Pemberly in Pride and Prejudice, but while flipping through a book about the house in the gift shop, we noticed a line that it's not known whether Austen actually visited the house when she toured the area. I'm not sure if that means the thing about Pemberley is just speculation, or if there's other evidence that Chatsworth definitely was her model for the house.
In any case, the exhibit consisted of art, jewelry, furniture, letters, and other treasures from the family collection. I think the oldest things on display were second century BC Roman cameos that had been collected by one of the previous Dukes. But among the oldest objects which were new when they passed into the family was a letter from Queen Elizabeth I to the Earl (not yet a duke) of Devonshire. They also had letters to various Dukes from Charlotte Bronte, Handel, Alexander Pope, Dickens, and Thackeray. Pretty impressive!
I don't really go for the exceptionally ornate furniture and jewelry, but the exhibit did have some really interesting components: a collection of drawings, mostly studies for paintings, which included works by Ruebens, Titian, Raphael, Dürer, and van Dyck among others. They also had a lovely portrait which was thought at one time to be a Leonardo, but now they think it was painted by his assistant Giovanni Boltraffio.
Also eighteenth century scientific equipment which came from Henry Cavendish, who was apparently nephew of one of the Dukes. From Cavendish they also had first editions of books by Galileo and Copernicus. Wow. There was also a fair amount of material by the architect Inigo Jones, who was patronized by an earlier Duke. They had a bust of Jones (along with a portrait of the then-Duke standing next to the same bust), letters and architectural drawings, and (most interesting to me) a series of simple drawings called "Triumphants" which depicted people of various professions. I have no idea what that was about because the audio wand didn't provide any information on that particular display.
Speaking of which, instead of signs next to the displays, they had these audio wands. They looked kind of like long cell phones. I'd never seen one before, but I guess I haven't spent much time in museums lately. Some of the displays had numbers next to them, and if you typed that number into the audio wand you would get information about the display. I can't decide whether I like the wand more or less than the traditional sign or placard. On the plus column, using the wand lets them provide much more information about each display. On the minus column, it tends to control the pace at which you view the displays. There was no pause button so when the voice moved on to the next artwork, I was obligated to move on with it. Of course you could always wait for the wand to finish talking and then go back, but it's not the same as a placard which you can read and think about for as long as you want.
The other big negative about the wand is that noisy people become much more of an irritant. I mean, loud people in a museum always annoy me, but even moreso when they're keeping me from information about the exhibit by yammering too loud for me to hear the wand. At one point there was this woman yelling "LOOK at this LETTER! Did you SEE the one by CHARLES DICKENS?" and I was sorely tempted to yell at Georg "LOOK at that IDIOT who will NOT SHUT UP! Did you SEE an EMPLOYEE anywhere who could MAKE THEM SHUT UP?" But I restrained myself. In any case, we got there early enough that we made it through about 2/3 of the gallery before the rude talky people showed up. After that it was just a matter of avoiding them as much as possible.
Interestingly, there was almost nothing in the collection for the 20th century. I think the last Victorian display was a costume from a grand 1897 party, and then the only 20th century displays I can remember were paintings by Lucian Freud, whose work the current Duke and Duchess are apparently very fond of. Freud's portraits are, well let's just say they're not very flattering. He tends to render people looking craggy and glum. Melancholy and isolation are the primary emotions of his work. Which makes it really interesting that the Duke and Duchess would be so into Freud, rather than an artist who would make them look attractive in their portraits. We wondered whether aristocrats on that level feel an obligation to patronize British artists, or maybe they just really like Freud's work.
The collection included portraits of the Duke, the Duchess and their son, and the audio wand had a hilarious story about the Duke going to Freud's studio to see the portrait of the Duchess for the first time. (Apparently Freud is notoriously private and won't let anyone see a work until it's finished.) While the Duke is staring at the painting, another visitor asks him who it's a portrait of. The Duke says, "It's my wife," to which the other man replies, "Thank god it's not my wife!"
The gift shop had tons of branded products to accompany the exhibit, including several books by the Duchess about the house and grounds, Duchess of Devonshire jam, Duchess of Devonshire biscuit tins, and so forth. I guess that, with an estate like that to maintain, they have to come up with some creative ways to make money. It must be a tremendous responsibility now that I think about it. Not just the financial burden, but the ethical responsibility of owning a collection that includes Henry VIII's rosary, needlework by Mary Queen of Scots, Henry Cavendish's telescope and so forth.
One last thing about the gallery: I was very pleased that, while they (of course) confiscated my bottle of water, they wrote my name on it and gave it back to me when I left. They do know something about customer service in Vegas.
Okay, whew! Finally done with the Chatsworth exhibit. We're almost up to lunchtime on Monday. I think I'm going to have to start writing in less detail or I'll never get through this trip report.
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