The Wallace Collection Ticket Portal

‘Damned expensive taste though’: The Afterlife of George IV’s Collections and Building Projects, from William IV to Elizabeth II'

King George IV died on 16 June 1830 in his new bedroom at Windsor Castle. Increasingly dropsical and reclusive towards the end of his life, he had only just moved into his new apartments in the Castle with his rapacious mistress, Lady Conyngham, and a small group of devoted attendants. George bequeathed a vast array of furniture and works of art to his successors, assembled during a lifetime of omnivorous collecting, as well as unfinished building projects in Windsor and London.

Join Tim Knox, Director of the Royal Collection, as he traces the afterlife of George IV’s myriad collections and building projects, and reveals how his sometimes-reluctant heirs coped with his prodigious legacy.

About the Speaker: Tim Knox was appointed Director of the Royal Collection by Queen Elizabeth II in 2018. Prior to that he was Director and Marlay Curator of the Fitzwilliam Museum, where he made a number of important acquisitions and planned the Museum's masterplan. He was Director of Sir John Soane’s Museum in London between 2005 and 2013, where he restored Sir John Soane’s glittering architectural treasury to its appearance in 1837, just as its founder wished, and converted the neighbouring houses to provide facilities for the museum. He is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London and Co-Patron of the Mausolea and Monuments Trust, which he helped found.

Dame Rosalind Savill Memorial Lecture

Dame Rosalind Savill was Director of the Wallace Collection from 1992 to 2011. With great energy and tenacity, she brought vital change to the museum, transforming it from an undervisited institution into a cultural landmark.

In memory of Dame Rosalind's profound contribution to the study of French decorative arts – and in the spirit of her passion for sharing her knowledge with the public – the annual Dame Rosalind Savill Memorial Lecture enables a leading scholar to share new insights into the world of 18th-century French arts and culture and the history of collecting.

This lecture is made possible thanks to Adrian Sassoon, a donation in memory of Cynthia Postan and the support of an anonymous donor.

With live captions by Stagetext.

The Wallace Collection houses a number of works by the French painter, Jean-Baptiste Greuze (1725-1805). During his lifetime, he enjoyed critical acclaim, immense popularity and commercial success. Subsequently, however, his reputation declined, reaching its nadir during the first half of the 20th century. 

To mark the 300th anniversary of his birth, Dr Barker will explore why Greuze has been both loved and loathed, and will ask if it might now be possible to take him seriously as an artist once again.

About the speaker: Dr Emma Barker is Senior Lecturer in Art History at the Open University. She is the author of Greuze and the Painting of Sentiment (Cambridge University Press, 2005). She has also published many articles on the work of Greuze and other aspects of 18th-century French art.

Take part at the museum: No ticket required, drop in on the day. Join us in the Theatre for this special talk.

Watch online: This talk will also be broadcast live from the museum. Book a free ticket online to receive a Zoom link. Ticketholders will also receive a link to view a recording of the talk, which will be available for two weeks only.   

Join expert, Mark Hale, to trace the fascinating origins of maille and its widespread use across various cultures and time periods. In this special demonstration and tour, you will learn how this versatile armour – commonly but erroneously known as ‘chain mail’ - evolved in design, function, and construction over the centuries.

Mark's practical demonstration and object handling session will offer you the unique opportunity to take a close look at the manufacturing process, and to discover how modern craftspeople have learned to create true-to-life reconstructions of this iconic form of armour, so often associated with the medieval age.

About the speaker: Mark Hale’s interest in maille led him to form his company, Cap-à-pie which uses mass-produced rings to create items for the re-enactment market. Mark regularly liaises with curators and conservators to develop historically accurate rings, and makes contributions to museum displays as well as the film industry.

Take part at the museum: This demonstration and tour will start in the Meeting Room, Lower Ground Floor, and move on to galleries throughout the museum.

Join filmmaker Martin Wallace as he traces the origins of ‘Outsider Art’ and its precursor, ‘Art Brut’. Wallace will focus on how these ideas have taken shape around the world in the form of visionary environments.

In 1998, Wallace wrote and directed the Channel 4 series, Journeys Into The Outside with Jarvis Cocker, which explored outsider environments throughout France, the USA, and from Mexico to India. Using clips from Journeys, as well as material from his new film about Wirral-based outsider, the late Ron Gittins, Wallace will explore the complicated and contested label of ‘outsider’ art.

With plenty of opportunity for audience interactivity, Wallace will bring to life the commonalities and differences among the sites he has examined around the globe. In particular, he will focus on Ron’s Place, and the unique, creative and transformative opportunities sites like these provide.

 For ages 18+. 

About the host: Martin Wallace is an International Emmy and Royal Television Society award-winner, and BAFTA nominee. He is currently producing a feature-length documentary about the late Ron Gittins, a Wirral-based artist who spent 33 years converting his rented flat into a fantastical, immersive homage to his passion for the ancient and classical worlds.

About Outsider Film Season: Join us for a season of films inspired by our exhibition Grayson Perry: Delusions of Grandeur, celebrating self-expression, unconventional creativity and the art that exists beyond the expected. Curated by Sophie Dutton, Works by Madge Gill worksby-madgegill.co'.

Take part at the museum: Join us at the museum for this special event, followed by an evening view of Grayson Perry: Delusions of Grandeur until 20.45.

Join us for a special film night hosted by filmmaker Huw Wahl and art critic and curator Valentin Diakonov, showcasing the thought-provoking series, Speaking Back. This compelling programme, directed by Wahl and produced by curator Holly Grange, explores how so-called ‘outsider artists’ – those often positioned at the margins of the art world – challenge and converse with the institutions that collect and interpret their work. Showing newly released films documenting Valerie Potter and Marie Rose-Lortet, the event will reflect on the lives and practices of artists such as Madge Gill and Aloïse Corbaz – featured in our exhibition Grayson Perry: Delusions of Grandeur – whose deeply personal, visionary work has often been misunderstood or underappreciated.

Wahl and Diakonov will also screen a pre-recorded discussion between artist Valerie Potter, and curator Jennifer Gilbert, who champions self-taught, disabled and overlooked artists. They will discuss power, representation and the radical potential of outsider art. This event invites audiences to reconsider how these artists ‘speak back’ through their work.

The featured artists are part of the Musgrave Kinley Outsider Art Collection, the largest public collection of its kind in the UK, which has played a vital role in preserving and championing their work. Speaking Back is a series of four films about artists from the Musgrave Kinley Outsider Art Collection. Commissioned by the Whitworth Art Gallery. For ages 18+.

About the speakers:

Valentin Diakonov (born 1980, Moscow, Russia) is an art critic and curator of Modern and Contemporary art at the Whitworth, University of Manchester. As a critic, he published reviews and articles in many Russian- and English-language publications, such as Frieze, e flux Criticism, Glasstire, Burnaway, and others. He served as curator at the Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, Moscow, in 2016-2022. In 2022-2024 he was critic in residence at the Core Program in the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.

Huw Wahl is an award-winning filmmaker whose work has been screened internationally at festivals such as CPH:DOX and Open City Docs, in venues including Centre Pompidou Metz, Royal Museums Greenwich, and aboard a Thames sailing barge. His films have received international awards, featured in Sight and Sound, The Guardian, and The Wire, and been supported by Arts Council England, The Henry Moore Foundation, and the Royal Photographic Society. He has published widely, curated film programmes, taught internationally, and worked as an AHRC-funded researcher. He is currently a Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Manchester. His latest film, Wind, Tide & Oar, is on UK cinema release with Tull Stories.

Jennifer Gilbert is the Director of the Jennifer Lauren Gallery, which she founded to promote self-taught, neurodivergent, and disabled artists from around the world. Her curatorial work challenges traditional ideas of art and champions inclusion and accessibility. She has collaborated with places including Flowers Gallery and Carl Freedman Gallery, Tate, and TalkArt Podcast. Jennifer is committed to ethical representation, working closely with artists and their communities to support visibility and recognition. Through exhibitions and public programmes, she creates platforms for underrepresented voices, fostering greater understanding and appreciation of artists working outside the 'mainstream' art world.

Valerie Potter is an artist exploring emotional expression through drawing and stitching. No longer able to draw, her textile work, often small-scale and hand-stitched, reflects themes of care, memory and inner monologues. Her practice bridges traditional techniques with contemporary themes, highlighting the quiet strength found in slow, tactile processes. Valerie lives and works in Margate, where she also writes poetry and knits. Her drawings, paintings, tapestries and embroideries have been exhibited at the Irish Museum of Modern Art (Dublin, UK), Whitechapel Gallery (London, UK), the Whitworth (Manchester, UK) and Tate Britain (London, UK). Collections include the Whitworth (Manchester, UK), Bethlem Museum of the Mind (Kent, UK) and Tate (London, UK).

About Outsider Film Season: Join us for a season of films inspired by our exhibition Grayson Perry: Delusions of Grandeur, celebrating self-expression, unconventional creativity and the art that exists beyond the expected. Curated by Sophie Dutton, Works by Madge Gill worksby-madgegill.co'.

Take part at the museum: Join us at the museum for this special event, followed by an evening view of Grayson Perry: Delusions of Grandeur until 20.45.

Please note the speaker line-up was changed on 12 August 2025 as Holly Grange is no longer able to attend. 

Journey through the visual culture and society of a selection of Italian cities by focussing on a range of artworks seen in the Wallace Collection and beyond. Looking at Florence, Rome and Urbino, our investigation will reveal the impact of each city’s unique artistic and architectural development, centred around the 15th to 17th centuries.

In republican Florence, we’ll learn how art offered a way for clients, led by the Medici family, to express cultural superiority. In Rome we’ll see how successive Popes used commissions to promote themselves and their family name – and in the city-state of Urbino, we’ll discover how art and architecture were powerful propaganda tools.

Read the full course description here. 

Joining Information and Format: This course will be taught through Zoom Webinar. Each course session duration is 120 minutes, including a five-minute break and Q&A session with the tutor.  

Tickets are for all dates of this course. Ticketholders will be emailed the Zoom link, Webinar ID and Passcode 24 hours in advance of the first course session, which should be retained for accessing all sessions.   

Course Recording: This course will be recorded. Within 48 hours of each course session, ticket holders will be emailed a link to view the recording, which will be available for two weeks.  

As London Fashion Week comes to the capital this September, what better time to investigate the changing fashions that can be discovered in the Wallace Collection?

Join dress historian Jacqui Ansell as she leads us through a range of styles, accessories and functions, from the Renaissance to the Regency era. We’ll focus on key artworks by artists including Crivelli, Rembrandt, Reynolds and Vigée Le Brun to help us decode dress. Not only will you learn about changing fashion trends, you’ll understand how dress can reveal fascinating insights into history.

Read the full course description here.  

Joining Information and Format: This course will be taught through Zoom Webinar. Each course session duration is 120 minutes, including a five-minute break and Q&A session with the tutor.  

Tickets are for all dates of this course. Ticketholders will be emailed the Zoom link, Webinar ID and Passcode 24 hours in advance of the first course session, which should be retained for accessing all sessions.   

Course Recording: This course will be recorded. Within 48 hours of each course session, ticket holders will be emailed a link to view the recording, which will be available for two weeks.  

Learn how Flemish painting radically reinvented itself during the 15th to 17th centuries. Discover how the astonishing realism of the early Netherlandish painters underwent a ‘renaissance’ as artists responded to new classical ideals sweeping in from Italy.

See how Flemish artists sought to assimilate the achievements of the great Italian masters, culminating in the work of Rubens. Drawing on important and fascinating Flemish paintings in the Wallace Collection by Memling, Pourbus and Rubens, Dr Williams will reveal a period of extraordinary cultural innovation.

About the speaker: Dr Richard Williams completed his doctorate at the Courtauld Institute and began his career as a specialist in Northern Renaissance Art at Birkbeck College, University of London. Following this, he joined the Royal Collection where he heads the department that oversees education and interpretation at Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle. He has published widely on the art of Northern Europe and has been a lecturer at the Courtauld Institute, the National Gallery and many other institutions.

Take part at the museum: This course will take place in the Theatre, Lower Ground Floor. Participants taking part at the museum are encouraged to visit the galleries in their own time afterwards.

Watch online: This talk will also be broadcast live from the museum. Online ticketholders will be emailed a link to join 24 hours in advance. Ticketholders will also receive a link to view a recording of the talk, which will be available for two weeks only.

Why is Titian – Tiziano Vecellio – still celebrated as one of the greatest ever Western European artists? Join Clare Ford-Wille to explore how Titian's inventive compositions, experimentation with style and use of superlative painting techniques ensure that his paintings continue to inspire and amaze today.

We’ll engage with a selection of the Renaissance artist’s most outstanding religious and mythological works, as well as his enigmatic portraiture. You’ll learn about the times in which Titian was working, the patrons for whom he painted and why his artistic legacy is so significant. Our exploration will include Titian’s monumental work, Perseus and Andromeda, which is now enjoyed in the Wallace Collection. 

Read the full course description here.  

Joining Information and Format: This course will be taught through Zoom Webinar. Each course session duration is 120 minutes, including a five-minute break and Q&A session with the tutor.  

Tickets are for all dates of this course. Ticketholders will be emailed the Zoom link, Webinar ID and Passcode 24 hours in advance of the first course session, which should be retained for accessing all sessions.   

Course Recording: This course will be recorded. Within 48 hours of each course session, ticket holders will be emailed a link to view the recording, which will be available for two weeks.  

Join celebrated artists Sam Jevon and Wilfrid Wood for a dynamic, hands-on workshop inspired by the visionary spirit of Madge Gill. Known for their bold, characterful work that blends humour, honesty and individuality, Wilfrid and Sam invite participants to explore portrait-making beyond realism – embracing the surreal, the intuitive, and the personal. Drawing on Gill’s spontaneous mark-making, this workshop encourages free expression and self-discovery through drawing and mixed media. No experience is necessary, just curiosity and an open mind.

Part of our exhibiton programme curated by Sophie Dutton, Works by Madge Gill.

For ages 18+. 

Read the full course description here.

Joining Information and Format: This workshop will take place in the Learning Studio, Lower Ground Floor at the museum. It includes access to the Grayson Perry: Delusions of Grandeur  exhibition during the event. 

Equipment and Materials: Please wear clothes suitable for a messy workshop. All materials and equipment are provided.

Join us for a special guided walk of the outdoor, multi-site exhibition Madge Gill: Nature in Mind. This site-specific display explores the work of the late Newham-based artist, celebrating the inspiration she found from the area’s natural surroundings. Following the guided walk, participants have the opportunity to view a selection of Gill’s original work up close, from Newham Council’s archive. Sophie Dutton, curator of The Line’s Madge Gill: Nature in Mind exhibition, together with Director of The Line, Sarah Carrington, will lead this two-part event. Focusing specifically on the history of Madge Gill’s work in relation to East London, they will help you explore the artworks, the heritage and natural environment along the route, and discuss the benefits and challenges of increasing access to art and green spaces in East London.

What to expect: We will meet outside Star Lane DLR Station (Stephenson Street Exit) at 12.30, and walk along the River Lea to the House Mill, arriving at approximately 13.30-14.00. We will then depart from House Mill by taxi to Stratford Library, to see Madge Gill’s work from Newham Council’s archive 14.30-15.30. Expect mostly flat walking routes with a few flights of stairs crossing a bridge. Comfortable shoes are advised. The walk will proceed at a reasonable pace, with limited places to sit along the route. This event accompanies the Grayson Perry: Delusions of Grandeur exhibition at The Wallace Collection, and takes place during London Sculpture Week and Newham Heritage Month. In partnership with The Line and Newham Council.

Image: Madge Gill installation at Cody Dock. Photography by Angus Mill. Courtesy of The Line.