Foyer paintings

Two historic paintings grace the foyer of the Gibbs Building, our 215 Euston Road headquarters. As part of the Wellcome Library collection, they are available for public viewing. Both are displayed in their original Victorian frames.

John Dee performing an experiment before Queen Elizabeth I

Oil painting by Henry Gillard Glindoni
(Wellcome Library no. 47369i)

This painting shows the house of the renowned Dr John Dee (1527-1608) in Mortlake. The house was the subject of a book by Peter Ackroyd, 'The House of Doctor Dee'.

At the court of Queen Elizabeth I, Dee was internationally revered for the range of his scientific knowledge, which embraced the fields of mathematics, navigation, geography, alchemy/chemistry, medicine and optics. He was a Fellow of St John's College, Cambridge, and later one of the original Fellows of Trinity College.

In the painting he is showing the effect of combining two elements, either to cause combustion or to extinguish it. Behind him is his assistant Edward Kelly, who is wearing a long skullcap to conceal the fact that his ears had been cropped as a punishment for forgery.

Queen Elizabeth I paid several visits to Dee's house in Mortlake and gave all her support to his research. In the picture the Queen sits in the left middle-ground, Sir Walter Raleigh is on her left, and behind him, holding a staff, is the Lord Treasurer William Cecil, 1st Lord Burghley.

When first painted, the painting showed Dee standing in a circle of human skulls, the accoutrement of practitioners of black magic. The artist later painted over the skulls, yet owing to changes in the chemical structure of the paint over time, they are now becoming visible once more.

Baroness Burdett-Coutts' garden party at Holly Lodge, Highgate

Oil painting by A P Tilt, 1882
(Wellcome Library no. 47362i)

This painting shows a garden party given for members of the International Medical Congress in the gardens of Holly Lodge, Highgate, the home of Angela, Baroness Burdett-Coutts. The gardens were built over with flats after the death of its owners, the Burdett-Coutts, who are depicted in the painting.

The International Medical Congress held in London in 1881 was the largest held up to that date. It publicised the case for the use of living animals in medical experiments, and it gave physicians and surgeons from many countries the chance to hear of the new science of bacteriology from speakers such as Pasteur and Koch.

The painting shows some of those who attended the party hosted by the Baroness Burdett-Coutts, a wealthy philanthropist. A key identifying the sitters is available from the Wellcome Library on request.

The three conspicuous young women in yellow are the daughters of John Marshall, a professor at University College London (UCL), who are the subject of a marvellous biography, 'The Precariously Privileged: A professional family in Victorian London', by Zuzanna Shonfield (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1987).

The picture was painted by three brothers all named A P Tilt: Alfred Preston Tilt, Archibald Preston Tilt and Arthur Preston Tilt. They are all thought to have died of tuberculosis shortly after completing the painting (Arthur died in 1883). There is irony in the fact that some of the scientists who identified the tubercle bacillus, and thus led the way towards controlling the disease, attended the 1881 congress.