Recently we were delighted to be invited to the Sir John Soane’s Museum for an evening drinks reception with Bridgeman Images. Bridgeman Images are the world’s leading specialists in licensing fine art, cultural and historical media for reproduction, and they are a recent addition to the EVCOM community. They invited our team and the UK Top 50 to this historic building for an intimate candlelit evening tour and the chance to come together and hear more about what Bridgeman offer.
Bridgeman’s founder Lady Harriet Bridgeman addressed her guests, sharing some of the history of Bridgeman Images, how and why she founded it, and what’s it gone on to become. Bridgeman Images pioneered the digitisation of museum collections as one of the first public image libraries, and it continues to be the only image and media library to work charitably acting as a benefactor to museums, galleries, institutions and private collectors because their model involves returning a percentage of all reproduction fees to the owners of the works.
Harriet then handed over to one of the brilliant guides at the museum, who shared some insight into Sir John Soane himself. Sir John is known as one of the greatest English architects, and the space that is now a museum was once his home which he built two centuries ago. The museum has been kept as it was at the time of his death in 1837, and displays his vast collection of antiquities, furniture, sculptures, architectural models and paintings.
It is an incredibly impressive collection with some notable pieces being an imposing statue of Apollo that Sir John would’ve seen from his desk everyday, Hogarth’s famous series ‘A Rake’s Progress’ and an (empty) sarcophagi. But is it the arrangement of these pieces that is most fascinating to me. Almost every wall and surface is covered with paintings and carvings and artefacts. The picture gallery is a small room made up of several panels that can be pulled back to reveal another wall of paintings and drawings: a treasure chest reveal.
It was such a pleasure to spend time with the Bridgeman Images team, to connect with some of our members who were in attendance and to meet some of Bridgeman‘s other clients in such a magical space. Thank you so much for having us!
You can find out more about what Bridgeman Images do here.
Jennifer Moyes Photography, Courtesy of Bridgeman Images.
