The Flemish Picture Gallery, the Mansion of Thomas Hope, Duchess Street, Portland Place

The Flemish Picture Gallery, the Mansion of Thomas Hope, Duchess Street, Portland Place

Robert William Billings

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

In 1799 Thomas Hope, the famous architect, traveller and collector, purchased Duchess House, London from the Dowager Lady Warwick and set about remodelling the original Robert Adam building. The first stage was finished by 1801 then, in 1819, a Flemish Picture Gallery was added to Hope's own designs, with William Atkinson acting as builder. The fifty by twenty foot space at the rear of the house had a flat coffered ceiling and raised clerestory to light the collection of Dutch and Flemish paintings inherited from a brother Henry Philip Hope. Pictures hung on the walls, and on a mahogany screen running the length of the room equipped with hinges to allow the works to swing out, and fitted with comparments to hold books and folios of engravings. Hope designed this feature, and the rest of the furnishings, and allowed public access on Mondays during the Season (admittance obtained through recommendation or letter of reference). Billings probably made this drawing after 1833, after training under John Britton, and before 1851, when the house was demolished.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Flemish Picture Gallery, the Mansion of Thomas Hope, Duchess Street, Portland PlaceThe Flemish Picture Gallery, the Mansion of Thomas Hope, Duchess Street, Portland PlaceThe Flemish Picture Gallery, the Mansion of Thomas Hope, Duchess Street, Portland PlaceThe Flemish Picture Gallery, the Mansion of Thomas Hope, Duchess Street, Portland PlaceThe Flemish Picture Gallery, the Mansion of Thomas Hope, Duchess Street, Portland Place

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.