Drawing on experience

Theatres of Life: Drawings from the Rothschild Collection, The Wallace Collection, Manchester Square, London W1, until 27 January 2008
Pop Art Portraits, National Portrait Gallery, until 20 January 2008, Sponsored by Lehman Brothers

Waddesdon Manor, the stately home of the Rothschilds near Aylesbury now managed by the National Trust, is lending for the first time a group of master drawings for outside exhibition. London’s Wallace Collection is the fortunate recipient, and some 75 high-quality drawings (mostly French 18th-century) are currently on display in the basement galleries of Hertford House in Manchester Square. Here is yet another example of the current fetish for subterranean galleries devoid of natural light. Revealingly, it’s the restaurant which is given the prime location upstairs (plenty of light and space), though it’s an oddly airless and not particularly pleasant place to eat. Once again, the priorities of our museums seem topsy-turvy. For culture, see below.

The exhibition consists of two rooms (the catalogue, published by Paul Holberton at £25 in paperback, is far grander than the show), of which the second room is the more interesting. The first contains a lot of drawings of theatricals and entertainments, the forerunners of fashion plates, along with a superb Wilkie of a Pierrot in brown ink and a typically ornate Bakst costume design. Sadly, these two works are hung far too high for ease of contemplation. The only other drawing in this room to hold my eye was the unusual ‘Design for a stage set with garden vista leading to a chateau’ in red chalk, depicting serried ranks of arboured loggias. Better to move through and linger in the second room.