Jane Wildgoose lecture: ‘Promiscuous Assemblage, Friendship, and the Order of Things’

Version:1.0 StartHTML:0000000149 EndHTML:0000001227 StartFragment:0000000199 EndFragment:0000001193 StartSelection:0000000199 EndSelection:0000001193 In 2006 the artist Jane Wildgoose was commissioned by the Yale Center for British Art to devise "a cabinet in celebration of the friendship between Mrs. Delany (1700-1788) and Margaret, Duchess of Portland (1715-1785)", to accompany the exhibition 'Mrs. Delany and her Circle'. Taking the sale catalogue to the Duchess's magnificent 'Portland Museum' (sold in 1786) as a primary reference, the artist set about configuring a "memory theatre" - neither a literal nor a strictly historical re-creation, but a poetic celebration of the passion for beauty, order, scientific investigation, and decorative embellishment that informed and underpinned the enduring friendship of two extraordinarily inquiring, skilled women. 'Promiscuous Assemblage, Friendship, & The Order of Things' was exhibited at the Yale Center for British Art in 2009, and at Sir John Soane's Museum, London, in 2010.