Basildon Park, Berkshire
This collection has 2,031 items online
Basildon Park holds a collection heavy in 17th-20th century English and European paintings, including a series of Apostles by Batoni, a garden still life by the supremely talented 18th-century female artist Anne Vallayer-Coster, and a display of drawings by Sutherland for his Coventry Cathedral tapestry. The furniture is mainly 18th-century English and European; a particularly magnificent instance is a state bed (c. 1829) with its original crimson damask hangings, window curtains and suite of furniture, which were bought at the sale of Ashburnham Place in 1953. The oldest item in the Basildon Park collection far predates the house: a 13th-century Yingqing ceramic funerary vase which, at an unknown date, was pierced and mounted as a lamp.