Victorian Treasures from Cecil French and Scott Thomas Buckle

A range of incredible Victorian treasures will be shown at Leighton House this summer, combining two very different - but equally important – collections and showcasing unseen works.  

Collecting some 70 years apart, Cecil French (1879-1953) and Scott Thomas Buckle both began acquiring Victorian art against the grain of fashionable taste. Both collections reflect their personal perspectives and interests, and this exhibition will offer visitors an up-close look at the act and process of art collecting.  

' I first saw artworks from the Cecil French Bequest in the 1980s and this had a major impact at a time when I first began collecting and researching drawings. Forty years on, I am hoping that the exhibition of works from both collections may inspire future collectors of Victorian art.' 

Scott Thomas Buckle, art collector.

Victorian Treasures from the Cecil French Bequest

Victorian Treasures from the Cecil French Bequest showcases a curated selection of 21 paintings by Victorian masters from the extraordinary collection of artist and collector Cecil French which was bequeathed to the public after his death.  The selection of works at Leighton House are on loan from London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham, some have been rarely seen before.

Exhibition highlights include The Wheel of Fortune (1875), one of Burne-Jones’s best-known compositions. At least seven versions of the same subject exist, the last of which was a large-scale oil painting in the collections of the Musée D’Orsay, Paris. The version in the exhibition was produced around the same time Burne-Jones began working on the 1883 oil painting.  

Apricots (1866) by Albert Moore (1841-1893) is one of the artist’s earliest paintings in the Aesthetic style, an artistic movement in the late nineteenth century promoting ‘art for art's sake’. Moore exhibited Apricots alongside another aesthetic painting, Pomegranates, at the Royal Academy in 1866. Cecil French later acquired both paintings, reuniting them in his collection. (Pomegranates is now in the Guildhall Art Gallery, London). 

Victorian Treasures from the Scott Thomas Buckle Collection

French’s oil painting collection will be juxtaposed with a collection of works on paper from the same period but acquired much later. Art historian Scott Thomas Buckle began collecting artworks in the 1980s, with a particular interest in 19th century British drawings and the models that featured in prominent works by Pre-Raphaelites and artists of the Aesthetic movement. 

The collection encompasses a variety of techniques and styles employed by the Victorians and explores how their drawing practice relates to their wider body of work, establishing a dialogue with paintings in the museum’s own collection and in the Cecil French display.

Highlights include drawings by leading artists of the period, such as John Everett Millais, John William Waterhouse and Lawrence Alma-Tadema,  and many will be unveiled for the first time for public enjoyment and shown in the Tavalozza Drawings Gallery .

As a building heavily influenced by Victorian sensibilities, Leighton House is the perfect location for a journey into the treasures of the age. This is an enhanced show from a temporary six-week exhibition in 2023. 

Acknowledgments

Victorian Treasures from the Cecil French Bequest has been organised in partnership with The London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham.  

Victorian Treasures from the Scott Thomas Buckle Collection is supported by The Cosman Keller Art & Music Trust. 

For further inquiries about the Cecil French collection, please contact Hammersmith & Fulham collections department at [email protected]

Plan your visit

Victorian Treasures from the Cecil French Bequest

24 May to 21 September 2025

Verey Exhibition Gallery,  Leighton House

Included within admission ticket

Victorian Treasures from the Scott Thomas Buckle Collection

24 May to 21 September 2025

Tavalozza Drawings Gallery,  Leighton House

Free to visit

Open Wednesdays to Mondays, 10am to 5:30pm (last entry 4:30pm). Closed on Tuesdays.

Plan your Visit

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