The talk will trace the story of the commission and the sequence of events that led to the creation of Leighton’s Arab Hall as an extension to the original house in the late 1870s.  Following the transition of Leighton’s home into a public museum, De Morgan’s legacy continued to be felt through the close involvement of Ida Perrin, whose Bushey Heath Pottery was the last manifestation of the De Morgan ‘style’.  Ida Perrin and her husband funded the first major extension to Leighton House in the late 1920s, presenting important examples of both De Morgan and Bushey pottery to be shown in the new gallery spaces. Some of these items are now on permanent display following the recent refurbishment of the museum.

About the speaker

Since 2000, Daniel Robbins has been Senior Curator, Museums with the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, responsible for two of London’s most significant house museums: Leighton House and Sambourne House.  Formerly with Glasgow Museums, he has organised many exhibitions and contributed to numerous catalogues and publications around nineteenth-century art, architecture, and design, including the authorship of the companion guide to Leighton House Museum published in 2011.  He was responsible for leading the award-winning project to restore the historic interiors of the house completed between 2008 and 2010, and the recent £9.6 million refurbishment of the twentieth-century additions to the original house.

Image credit: (detail) Arab Hall, Leighton House, photographed by Dirk Lindner, courtesy Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea.