Lending items for exhibition

The reopening of the heritage sector after the Covid-19 pandemic has seen a flurry of activity in exhibitions with a drive to get people back into galleries and museums throughout the world. Loans activity which was previously on hold has now started to materialise and new requests for LMA objects are once again coming in. 2022 was a busy year for the conservation team, supporting eight external loans including 54 objects prepared for display. One of the highlights was an exhibition at the Philip Mould Gallery located on Pall Mall in central London. The show was called ‘Without Hands’, The Art of Sarah Biffin', and focused on the artist who was born in the late 18^th century without arms or legs. The content captured her successful career as an artist and rise to fame throughout the country. LMA was able to loan a volume containing proceedings of the Smithfield Piepowder Court, 1790-1854, which showed documentation of Sarah as a working artist in London, and was a valuable piece of archive material supporting the graphic elements of the exhibition. The show was extremely well received, and our volume was one of many objects which helped tell the story of how Sarah overcame her disability and rose to prominence throughout her life and career.

2023 is equally busy with a range of institutions interested in borrowing from the collections at LMA. We are in talks with nine institutions including the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, the Foundling Museum and St Paul’s Cathedral, which is commemorating the 300^th anniversary of Sir Christopher Wren’s death. The St Paul’s exhibition celebrates the revered architect responsible for many famous buildings across London. It also celebrates the reopening of the Cathedral Library which has just undergone extensive renovation to improve the conditions there. More information can be found at Transforming the Library | St Paul's Cathedral. The LMA Conservation team helped prepare two architectural drawings, a benefactors’ roll, and an account book which are now on display in the library and give context to Wren’s contributions to St Paul’s Cathedral Library. There is one last unique object we have lent, and perhaps a strange one for an archive to hold, which is a small piece of Sir Christopher Wren’s coffin. It is not confirmed how the piece came away from the coffin, but stories suggest that in 1851, when Wren’s tomb was opened to bury his last surviving direct descendent, the coffin was ‘knocked’, liberating a few valuable pieces. LMA holds one of these on behalf of St Paul’s and the Royal Institute of British Architects holds another. The coffin piece is on display only a few feet from Wren’s tomb in the crypt beneath the cathedral.

The LMA loans programme highlights the vast collections we hold and the wealth of subject areas they cover. Whether it be 20^th century football stadium plans or 17^th century cathedral plans, by lending objects and collaborating with other institutions, we provide access to the collections and give the public a better understanding of the work we do and connect them to the stories being told.