Museum Homes - Discover the hidden Museums in London: Sambourn House and Leighton House
- THE DVN
- Nov 24, 2022
- 2 min read
While a tour of the Louvre or the British Museum would entail buying a ticket, waiting in line, then admiring famous attractions alongside many tourists and camera-flashing art loving people, a visit to one of these museums will definitely offer an experience much more unique.
18 Stafford Terrace, formerly known as Linley Sambourne House, now renamed to Sambourne House, was the home of the Punch illustrator Edward Linley Sambourne in Kensington, London.
Facts:
This beautifully Preserved Home of a Famous Victorian Cartoonist is the spot to visit, perfect for creators and reel makers. with so much history and character to indulge in.
Edward Linley Sambourne moved into the house in 1875 and redecorate the house in the aesthetic style by himself. Sambourne House shows the opulent decoration and ornamentation that lines every single inch of its impressive five-story interior.
By 1877, just two years after Edward moved in, there were already fifty vases, seventy chairs, and around seven hundred framed pictures in the house
The house also contains a selection of the 3,000 illustrations and advertisements by Edward for Punch magazine
Edward Linley Sambourne Friends:
Among his friends in the Holland Park Circle was the painter and President of the Royal Academy, Lord Fredric Leighton, who is famous for his stunning home and art studio which we also had a chance to visit.
Sambourne couldn’t afford to build with the same level of ambition as Leighton, and so he went about doing things on a smaller scale.
The Leighton House is an art museum in the Holland Park area of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in west London. The former studio of Victorian artist Frederic, Lord Leighton, is now a museum dedicated to his life and works. The house was turned into a museum after his death, opening in 1929.
Facts:
Leighton House is known for the stunning interior. With beautiful Arab Hall, mosaic floors and tiles brought back from Leighton’s travels to the Middle East.
Frederick Leighton, 1st Baron Leighton, was born into a well-to-do merchant family in Scarborough in 1830
He studied art in Europe and lived for several years in Italy and France.
Leighton's rise to the top of the art world was recognised when he was knighted in 1878, and in 1896 he was the very first painter to be given a peerage.
When Leighton died the contents his Leighton House were sold, including over 1000 drawings. Many of these were purchased by the Fine Art Society.
The house was extended several times during Leighton's lifetime, including the 2-storey addition of the Arab Hall in 1877, made to display a collection of Middle Eastern tiles.
This museum is truly a once of a kind, London is full of amazing places to visit but this one has to be on top on your bucket list. The elegant interior holds period furniture and over 700 of Leighton's drawings, 81 oil paintings, 27 watercolours, 54 prints, as well as sketches, albums, and notebooks. There are also sculptures including the famous Athlete Strangling a Python.
