Monday, 15th May 2017

10.30am - 1pm (approx.)

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This visit was advertised in the February 2017 Newsletter and is now fully subscribed.  Please contact the Events Secretary [events@furniturehistorysociety.org] if you would like to go on the waiting list.

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Led by Dr. Vicky Avery, Keeper of the Applied Arts department, this tour will take place while the Fitzwilliam Museum is closed to the public, giving members exclusive access to some of the museum's exceedingly fine new furniture acquisitions.  These include a pair of 17th-century Roman pietre dure cabinets on early 19th-century stands by Charles Heathecote Tatham, which until 2015 had been in the collection of the Earls of Carlisle at Castle Howard. In celebration of the bicentenary of the founding of The Fitzwilliam Museum, funds were raised and the cabinets were saved for the nation.  Also now on display after undergoing conservation  is the ‘Ballyfin’ Augsburg cabinet, purchased by the Museum in 2014.  This exceptionally rare ebony table cabinet in the form of a miniature classical temple, with silver-gilt mounts and inset with marble and lapis lazuli pietre dure plaques is a masterpiece of German and Italian mid-17th-century craftsmanship, and is almost unique in being signed by leading Augsburg cabinet-maker, Elias Boscher.  The cabinet was acquired in the early 19th century by Sir Charles Henry Coote, 9th Baronet (1792 – 1864), for his country house at Ballyfin in County Laois, Ireland and it remained in the family until 2006.  The Museum is also currently hosting part of the Frua-Valsecchi collection, which includes English Arts & Crafts furniture by William Burges, E.W. Gordon and C.R. Ashbee, as well as rare examples of earlier French and Italian furniture in the Neoclassical and Chinoiserie styles, including a daybed and commode designed by Giuseppe Levati and made by Giuseppe Maggiolini.

Cost:  £30 including tea/coffee

Limit:  15 members