Sir John Soane Museum - July 7

After our visit to the British Museum, several of us decided to explore the Sir John Soane Museum. Sir John Soane was a leading architect in the late-18th to early-19th centuries. The Museum is the site of Soane's home and, by an act of Parliament, has been kept as it appeared during his lifetime. Unfortunately, I could not find many pictures that do the space justice. But as the picture below hints, Soane clearly believed "more is more." The Museum is filled from floor to ceiling with thousands of Egyptian, Greek, and Roman artifacts, as well as hundreds of paintings.

The house is actually comprised of 3 adjacent townhouses. Soane initially lived in #12 Lincoln's Inn Fields, however, he slowly acquired the neighboring buildings in order to expand his collection.

His goal for this space was to open it up to the public to help educate and inspire any one interested in art and architecture. The items in the collection range from fragments of cornices to a full-sized sculpture of Apollo and a 3,300 year old Egyptian sarcophagus.

Interior photograph courtesy of http://www.britcastles.com/curio/curio.htm