Wallace Collection – Art & Medieval Armour

Craig’s review… The Wallace Collection came as a total surprise to me. I was expecting just another art gallery but the first two rooms reminded me of Buckingham Palace. The walls are all velvet reds and warm gold with huge oil portraits ten feet across. The antique cabinets are filled with gilded porcelain and golden trophy plates and statues. They’ve got urns and clocks and heavy dangling chandeliers – the marble fireplace looks like it has come straight from the Palace of Versailles!

The next set of rooms were full of religious treasures. If you’ve ever been impressed by the stained glass windows at the V&A then this will be right up your street. The darkened cabinets contain caskets, candlesticks and delicate little reliquaries. They’ve got paintings of angels, altarpieces and illuminated pages from biblical texts. It’s all very beautiful.

Medieval suits of armour

After that comes a series of rooms that are full of medieval guns and muskets and suits of chainmail armour – the kind of thing that a chivalrous knight might wear on the Crusades. They’ve got fantastically ornate helmets and swords and gauntlets, huge maces with deadly metal spikes, cutlasses and crossbows, pistols and scimitars. You could start up your own armoury with the weapons in here. They’ve even got two full-size fighting horses with two huge sword-wielding knights on top.

Upstairs is much more like a traditional gallery with beautiful rooms full of works by Gainsborough, Titian, Reynolds, Rembrandt and Rubens. They’ve got an entire room full of Canaletto’s as well.

The Laughing Cavalier by Frans Hals

The famous picture that everyone comes to see is The Laughing Cavalier by Frans Hals. I’m standing in front of it right now and yes, he is definitely looking smug about something, but I wouldn’t exactly say he was laughing. He hasn’t got much to smile about anyway because he’s imprisoned inside a little square cell of wooden walls directly opposite a depressing scene of anguished adults. The picture next-door is of a lady holding up a dead rabbit. If I had to stare at them all day then it would do my head in.

Just when you think it can’t get any better you walk into a suite of rooms where Wallace had his study and drawing room. These rooms are definitely on a par with a royal palace – there is no question about it. You can’t call this place an art gallery, a museum or a royal residence, because it’s all three rolled into one.

Worth a visit? ★★☆Value for money? freeGood for kids? ☆☆☆Easy to get to? ★★★

I also recommend… If you enjoy this then try Courtauld Gallery (catch a tube from Bond Street to Temple); King’s Gallery (walk it in 28 mins or travel from Bond Street to St Jamess Park via tube); National Gallery (walk it in 26 mins or catch a tube from Bond Street to Charing Cross) and Victoria & Albert Museum (take a tube journey from Bond Street to South Kensington)

The author Craig Cross owns city-guide.london and has spent the last decade reviewing the capital’s landmarks, attractions and hotels. His guidebook London Squire is available from Amazon

Related articles and events

Today

Ranjit Singh: Sikh, Warrior, King at the Wallace Collection