Jameson, Anna: Companion to the most celebrated private galleries of art in London: containing accurate catalogues, arranged alphabetically, for immediate reference, each preceded by an historical & critical introduction, with a prefactory essay on art, artists, collectors & connoisseurs (London: Saunders and Otley, 1844)

INTRODUCTION.

Some account of the formation and division of the old
Stafford Gallery has already been given in the catalogue
of the Bridgewater Gallery, properly so called. On the
death of the late Duke of Sutherland, in 1833, the family
pictures, and those acquired by him when Earl Gower and
Marquess of Stafford, fell to his eldest son, the present
Duke. This collection, properly the Sutherland Gallery, has
been recently enlarged by the purchase of several grand
and interesting pictures, and is now arranged in the Duke’s
magnificent mansion, or rather palace, principally in a
gallery built for their reception; while the cabinet pic-
tures and the Dutch masters, are distributed through the
apartments. They are in general seen to great advantage,
being well hung, and well lighted. I except those in the
long corridors on either side of the grand hall, which are
mostly decorative pictures, of no great mark or value, and
are only seen when the house is lighted up.
The picture gallery in Stafford House, is not only the
most magnificent room in London, but is also excellently
adapted to its purpose, in the management of the light, and
the style of decoration. There is no colour but the dark
rich crimson of the furniture, the walls being of a creamy
white, the ornaments of dead and burnished gold. The
length of the gallery is 126 feet, by 32 feet in width. The
central division, 45 feet in length, is illuminated by a vast
lantern, 48 feet from the ground; the two ends are each
24 feet in length, by 24 in height. On one side of the