EXHIBITIONS
The duc de Choiseul: An 18th-century collector at home
This display has been organised to mark the acquisition of a portrait of the Duke by Adélheïde Labille-Guiard, which will hang in the Red Ante Room. The Duke is shown sitting at his favourite desk, which is on loan from a private collection for the season. A gold box, on loan from the Metropolitan Museum, New York, shows enchanting miniature scenes of Choiseul's country estate at Chanteloup, and books and paintings from his collection are also displayed nearby, along with a suite of chairs which also came from Chanteloup.
Theatres of Life: Drawings from the Rothschild Collection at Waddesdon Manor 
The drawings in this exhibition are among the least known aspects of the remarkable collections at Waddesdon. Ferdinand de Rothschild, Waddesdon's creator, his cousin Edmond de Rothschild, and later members of the family, were all fascinated by life before the French Revolution. Their quintessentially 19th-century collection of 18th-century French drawings includes scenes of modern life, nostalgic glimpses of the past, theatrical spectacle and the turmoil of war. Many drawings in this exhibition have never been seen in public before. An extended version of the exhibition was shown at the Wallace Collection, London and the Djangoly Gallery, Nottingham last year.
Life behind the green baize door - a new display about servants at the Manor 
The 1891 census recorded 24 indoor staff at Waddesdon. They included a steward, a housekeeper, cook, kitchen, still room and scullery maids, eight housemaids, footmen, a porter, an attendant for the electric light, an odd man, a hall boy and a needlewoman.
A new display for 2009 located in Kitchen Corridor explores the lives of Waddesdon's servants and the running of a Victorian country house, from how the house was heated to cleaning and covering the furniture during the winter.
"Cardiacs Beware!": The Rothschilds in Racing
We are also celebrating a different kind of anniversary. In 1909, James de Rothschild's horse, Bomba, won the Ascot Gold Cup, so 100 years on we are looking at the Rothschild family's long engagement with the turf. Racing was James's first love, and he established the stud at Waddesdon which continues to thrive, but other members of the family were equally passionate about the sport. The exhibition looks at James's racing life and at some of the great Rothschild horses and their owners.
The Sèvres Porcelain collection of Baron Edmond de Rothschild (1854-1934)
In a family of great collectors, many of them passionate about the arts of 18th-century France, Baron Edmond de Rothschild can be counted among the greatest. His collection of 18th-century Sèvres numbered over 160 pieces, nearly half of which were vases, in addition to three large dinner services (including the Starhemberg Services displayed in the adjoining room to the Exhibition Room). Among the exceptionally rare pieces were a plaque with the portrait of Louis XV, a nightlight and the 'Copenhagen vase'. He displayed his porcelain in rooms whose names evoked the 18th century - the 'Salon des Bouchers', and the 'Salon Louis XVI', for example - with exceptional paintings and pieces of furniture from the same period. He also had an impressive 21 pieces of furniture mounted with Sèvres porcelain plaques. He was very particular about how the objects were displayed, each room only containing pieces with the same ground colour. Fourteen vases with the rare pink ground were grouped in the 'Salon de famille' of his Paris townhouse with the famous du Barry commode, perhaps chosen because the pink was known as 'rose du Barry' in the 19th century.
Baron Edmond's elder son, James (1878-1957), enriched the Sèvres porcelain at Waddesdon when he inherited one third of his father's collections. The pieces fitted seamlessly into the already significant collection assembled by Baron Ferdinand and Alice de Rothschild. In creating the new arrangements, Mrs James de Rothschild seems to have followed Baron Edmond's style of display. |
