Art and collections
We care for one of the world's largest and most significant collections of art and heritage objects. Explore the highlights, our latest major exhibitions, curatorial research and more.
Collection items inspired by romance
Throughout history artists have been drawn to the emotional highs and lows of love, inspired by tragic tales of doomed lovers and unrequited passion, and uplifting romances of all-conquering true love. Step into this intoxicating world with a selection of objects found at places we look after that are inspired by love.
Tales of romance
Love among the ruins
The title of this painting by Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones (1833–1898) at Wightwick Manor in the West Midlands was taken from an 1855 poem by Robert Browning, but it is not a direct illustration of the text. Instead it possibly depicts Poliphilo and Polia, characters in an early Venetian romance called the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili.
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Tokens of love
From a king to his mistress
Legend has it that a silver, heart-shaped locket at Moseley Old Hall in Staffordshire was a present from Charles II to one of his mistresses. Dating to around 1660, it bears a portrait of the king and is engraved with the words, ‘Cvpid's dart posses yovr hart’. Charles hid in a priest hole at the hall in 1651 after his defeat at the battle of Worcester.
A mother's gift
An anthology of Italian poetry at Sissinghurst Castle Garden in Kent was a gift to Vita Sackville-West from her mother, Victoria in 1911. The ornate leather binding features heart decorations and inside there is a heart-shaped leather label with an inscription from mother to daughter. It is one of several beautifully bound books given to Vita by her mother.
A sailor's valentine
A colourful mosaic of intricately arranged seashells at Basildon Park is a charming example of a sailor's valentine. Made primarily by women in Barbados in the 19th century, these souvenirs were sold to British and American sailors as last-minute mementoes to take home after long journeys at sea.
Visions of romance
Wrapped in love
With its pastel shades and delicate decoration, the boudoir at Attingham Park in Shropshire is the embodiment of femininity and romance. A series of roundels, attributed to French artist Louis-André Delabrière and depicting scenes on the theme of love, adorn the elaborate domed ceiling.
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Romanticism
Romanticism was an artistic and intellectual movement of the late 18th and early 19th centuries that shifted away from the Enlightenment’s focus on reason and instead emphasised the importance of emotion and imagination. In Romantic art, nature, with its uncontrollable power, unpredictability, and potential for cataclysmic extremes offered an alternative to the ordered world of Enlightenment thought.
Storm and Avalanche by Philip James de Loutherbourg at Petworth House in West Sussex embodies this approach. It depicts a fast-moving avalanche and captures the vulnerability of humans caught in the throes of nature.
Love across the divide
Anne 'Nanette' Hawkins
Known as the isolated baronet, Sir Harry Harpur of Calke Abbey in Derbyshire was painfully shy, shutting himself off from society and even giving his servants orders by letter. He found happiness in 1792, marrying Nanette Hawkins, but as she was a lady’s maid and not a member of the aristocracy the marriage caused a scandal. A watercolour of Nanette is in the collection at Calke Abbey.
La Baccelli
When Italian dancer Giovanna Zanerini, nicknamed La Baccelli, became lover to John Frederick Sackville, the third Duke of Dorset, he had a life-size plaster statue made of her. After the pair separated and John married, the statue was discretely moved to a less prominent position at Knole in Kent, and rechristened A Naked Venus.
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