Visit to the Wallace Collection and Library Archive (13th July 2015)
Nine members of the ARLG London and Southeast group visited the Wallace Collection
Library and Archives on the afternoon of Monday 13th July.
You may already be familiar with this gallery and its collections of mainly French fine art,
furniture and porcelain, as well as arms and armour, and its opulent setting in the 18th
century Hertford House (Manchester Square) - a stone’s throw from Selfridges and Oxford
Street.
The gallery had its origins in the private collections of the Francophile Marquesses of
Hertford, and was opened to the public in 1897 as a bequest to the nation from Lady
Wallace, widow of Sir Richard Wallace, the illegitimate son of the 4th Marquess of Hertford.
We now had a unique opportunity to see behind the scenes and find out how the Library and
Archives were managed. Interestingly, the Wallace Collection has only employed
professional librarians and archivists since 2000.
Mary Fisk
This account of our visit is by June Osborne (London Metropolitan University)
The Wallace Collection library was originally established as a research library for curatorial
staff but is now open to the public by appointment operating similarly like our own TUC
library. However many of the curators like to keep the specialist books about their subject
housed in their offices. So to fulfill a request for a certain book or pamphlet, staff have to
locate the material in question and lay it out for perusal for the member of public at a
specified appointment time.
The library is funded by the Department of culture, Media and Sport. The Wallace Collection
has been affected by substantial budget cuts in the preceding years and indeed this year.
The archives are almost full in Hertford House and already some lesser used and requested
materials are stored in commercial storage. Space is an issue.
Around 400 books a year are acquired by the Wallace collection, be they rare, old or current
materials.
Special collections include the Herbert Bier Archive. Bier (1905-1981) was a Jewish art
dealer, who emigrated from Germany to London in 1938 and his personal papers and
sales records allow visitors to delve into the Bier family’s history and glean valuable
information relating to the treatment of Jewish people in Germany during the 1930s,
especially the personal and professional restrictions that Bier came up against.
The Library uses an in-house descriptive classification system devised by curatorial staff
over the years.
e.g. Gold, silver & bronze from Mughal India / Mark Zebrowski
classmark would be ART ORI IND ZEB [ART ORIental INDia - author ZEBrowski]
Or a catalogue of an exhibition of gold and silver pieces from the De Buck / Siegfried Gallery
in Ghent, Belgium
classmark would be GOL/SIL EX BEL GHE SIE [GOLd and SILver EXhibition BELgium
GHent.[ De Buck / SIEgfried gallery]
One can follow how it evolved and the curators working on the Wallace collection did not
want the classmarks to change as they had got used to this system.
It was interesting to see another way of classifying that works. Sometimes change is better
or in this case ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ comes to mind.