Marketing Art

Canaletto: Old Walton Bridge, 1754
Dulwich Gallery exterior view



The Dulwich Picture Gallery located four miles from central London has loaned the Frick Gallery in New York nine old master paintings. This small exhibit serves as a tease for New Yorkers in hopes that they will make the trip to Dulwich the next time they are in London.

This rare collection was complied by the French art dealer Noel Desenfans and his Swiss business partner Sir Francis Bourgeois for the Polish King Stanislaw Augustus in 1790. This collection was to establish the National Collection of Poland, but 5 years later, Poland was partitioned by Russia, Austria and Prussia. This political climate kept the sale from going through and left Bourgeois with the collection. Unable to sell it due to the flood of art as a result of the French Revolution, the collection grew and Bourgeois left it to the prominent Dulwich boy's school in London. Artists of these rare paintings include Rembrandt, Murrillo, Watteau.

The Dulwich Picture Gallery is England’s first purpose-built public art gallery and attracted 140,000 visitors last year. It remains very popular but the London traffic and bridge construction continues to be a problem, making it possible for fewer and fewer Londoners to get to the gallery in a timely fashion. Originally, Bourgeois selected the gallery space for its distance from the polluted London air but the four-mile traffic jams are making it difficult to view.

When you do get to the Dulwich Gallery it is quite the experience. Built by Sir John Soane, the gallery design is still studied for its ideal viewing conditions. The gallery offers indirect natural light through central domes. This gallery could very well have served as inspiration for Louis Kahn’s Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas which lets light in through the eaves, making the ceiling appear to float.