This collection covers the ground from China to Peru. There is a portrait of Napoleon, once the property of Josephine; there are Reynolds's sketch-books; there is Sir Christopher Wren's watch.
The Geffrye, also among the less known museums of London, is controlled by the T.C.C. A fine block of almshouses, built in Shoreditch early in the eighteenth century, from a bequest by Sir Robert Geffrye, Lord Mayor of London, is now a museum Of furniture. You can see period interiors, a beautiful oaken staircase by Wren, a remarkable collection of cooking appliances, furniture by the giants—Chippendale, Heppelwhite, Sheraton Adam. Those who know the Geffrye go more than once.
Out at Forest Hill the L.C.C. controls another museum, the Horniman, with its clock tower and mosaic, set beside a pleasant park. It contains natural history specimens and an extremely fine collection of implements and weapons, art and crafts of pri-initive peoples.
You can pass on from it to the Dulwich Art Gallery in what Arnold Bennett described as "curious, semi-sylvan surroundings." Indirectly, London owes this prize to Stanislaus, last King of Poland. Towards the end of the eighteenth century he commissioned a man named Noel Joseph Desenfans to collect pictures as the nucleus of a Polish national gallery. At the partition of Poland Desenfans was left with his how unwanted trea sures; he bequeathed them to a friend, a Royal Academician, who left them in turn to Dulwich College.
The collection includes such works as a portrait of Philip of Spain by Velasquez. Gainsborough's "Linley Sisters," Reynolds's "Mrs. Siddons as the Tragic Muse," Rembrandt, Van Dyck, Rubens, Raphael, Titian, Murillo, Cuyp, Hobbema. Watteau, Poussin—it is an extraordinary roll-call in the quiet suburb of Dulwich.
Away, on the northern side of London, beside Hampstead Heath, superb pictures and furniture fill the Adam mansion of Ken Wood. Ten years ago Lord Iveagh left his estate for the use of the public; but the public has been slow to respond. Here you will find Rembrandt in his old age, the "Guitar Player" by Vermeer of Delft, Van Dyck's "Henrietta of Lor-rame," fifteen works by Reynolds, ten by Romney, eight by Gainsborough. The house is a noble example of Robert Adam's craftsmanship; it is more than unfortunate that Londoners have come to take it for granted.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.