We don’t normally blog about exhibitions outside Lancashire but we’re making an exception for the Cotton to Gold exhibition at Two Temple Place in London which opened recently.
This new exhibition show cases the riches gathered by some of the great collector-philanthropists of the booming industrial northwest who subsequently donated or bequeathed their collections to Blackburn Museum & Art Gallery, Haworth Art Gallery in Accrington and Towneley Hall & Museum in Burnley.
Favourites for me include a collection of delicate JMW Turner prints from Blackburn Museum & Art Gallery, including one of Towneley Hall itself, the Tiffany glassware (from the Haworth) and the quirky collection of Taxidermy birds collected by George Booth. (N.b - If you like Taxidermy then take a trip to the Whitaker Museum at Rawtenstall to see the world famous Tiger & Python one of the finest examples of this type of art in the world).
The collections of books also includes some of the rarest books in world, among them the first book to be printed in English, a Third Folio of Shakespeare, and a first edition of Gulliver’s Travels. I’ll be the first to admit that you wouldn’t expect to find such a rare and extensive collection in Blackburn – but we’ve Robert Edward Hart to thank, whose fortune (made through rope making) gave him to means to collect these rare titles.
This exhibition’s highlights and reminds us of the great and wondrous artefacts at museums across Lancashire. Other great artefacts not featured in the exhibition include the rare and vast textile collection by Miss Rachel Kay-Shuttleworth in the Gawthorpe Textile Collection and Queen Street Mill Textile Museum, home to the last surviving steam powered mill in the world.
Sally
The exhibition at Two Temple Place runs until April 19th April. A Lancashire tour of the exhibition is planned for later in the year.
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