The two important accessions of antiquities to the British Museum which had just accrued from the success of our arms in Egypt, and from the almost life-long researches of Mr. Towneley and his associates in Italy, had led the way to an important enlargement of the Museum building, and also to a great improvement in its internal organization. The true importance, to the Public, of a series of the best works of ancient art as a national possession was beginning to be felt.
In June, 1805, the Trustees obtained from Parliament the purchase of the Towneley Marbles. They had already (in the previous year) obtained power to begin an additional building, the plan and design of which were now enlarged, and made specially appropriate to the reception and display of the Towneley Collection.
Organization of the Department of Antiquities.
Hitherto, the Antiquities in the Museum had been regarded as a mere appendix of the Natural History Collections. They were now made a separate department, in accordance with their intrinsic value. Mr. Taylor Combe, who had entered the service of the Trustees, in 1803, as an assistant librarian, was made first Keeper of the new department. He filled that office, with much efficiency, until his death in 1826.
The new building or ‘Towneley Gallery’ was opened by a royal visit on the third of June, 1808. The Queen, the Prince of Wales, the Dukes of Cumberland and Cambridge, came to the Museum with a considerable retinue, and were received, with much ceremony, by a Committee of the Trustees. The Queen had not visited the Museum for twenty years past.
The Towneley Gallery was erected from the designs of Mr. Saunders, and was admirably adapted to its purpose. Some of the sculptures have not been seen to quite equal advantage since its replacement by the existing building. The addition has now disappeared as entirely as has old Montagu House itself, but the reader may see its form and style by glancing at the small vignette on the title-page of this volume.
Opening of the Elgin Marbles at Burlington House.
So favourable an opportunity, however, was for the present lost. The self-conceit of the cognoscenti strengthened the too obvious parsimony of Parliament. Lord Elgin made no direct overture to the Government, but appealed to the great body of artists, of students, and of art lovers, for their verdict on his labours in Greece and their product. He arranged his marbles first in his own house in Park Lane, and afterwards—for the sake of better exhibition—at Burlington House, in Piccadilly, and threw them open to public view. The voice of the artists was as the voice of one man. Some, who were at the top of the tree, acknowledged a wish that it were possible to begin their studies over again. Others, who had but begun to climb, felt their ardour redoubled and their ambition directed to nobler aims in art than had before been thought of. Not a few careers, arduous and honourable, took their life-long colour from what was then seen at Burlington House. Some of the men most strongly influenced were not what the world calls successful, but not one of them ended his career without making England the richer by his work.
The eagerness of foreign artists to study the Elgin Marbles was equal to that of Englishmen. Canova, when on his visit to London in 1815, wrote: ‘I think that I can never see them often enough. Although my stay must be extremely short, I dedicate every moment I can spare to their contemplation. I admire in them the truth of nature, united to the choice of the finest forms.... I should feel perfectly satisfied, if I had come to London only to see them.’
The most accomplished of foreign archæologists were not less decisive in their testimony. Visconti, after seeing and studying repeatedly a small portion only of the Parthenon frieze, said of it: ‘This has always seemed to me to be the most perfect production of the sculptor’s art in its kind.’ When he saw the whole, his delight was unbounded.