This magnificent Regency portrait of the Misses Pollocks hangs in our 40 Years Exhibition. We don’t known much about the women, except their family were immensely wealthy from the linen industry. We know much more about the artist Thomas Romney Robinson (d.1810), whose son has a crater on the moon named after him!

Is the museum full of portraits of old men? No!

Why are we asking this rhetorical question?  A visitor to the Museum recently joked that our historic Assembly Room is full of portrait of old men, and that there were no women!  We have lots of stories of women, famous or otherwise, throughout the museum but they were not always immortalised in portrait form.  Stay tuned to the #VirtualMuseum and we will tell these stories!

#DigitalArt?

This portrait us currently hanging in our ’40 years of collecting’ exhibition. It is a great example of how items in the collection have been digitised and made available online for visitors to enjoy or use in research.