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Article: Sir John Soane's Museum. (London, England) (Column)
- Article from:
- History Today
- Article date:
- February 1, 1994
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1994 History Today Ltd. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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* A museum is a respectable articulation of collecting mania. In one direction lie lunatic accumulations of old newspapers, used light bulbs and obsolete mousetraps. In the other looms all the majesty of the British Museum. The collection on view in Sir John Soane's Museum, displayed as he organised it in the rooms he himself designed, lies somewhere between the cabinet of curiosities and the museum proper.
Soane was an odd fish, said to have looked like a picture on the back of a spoon. Born in 1753, the son of a country bricklayer, he made his way by his own talents to the top of the tree as an architect. Marrying Elizabeth Smith, a rich builder's heiress, he ...