Review: The Holburne Museum

What’s this place all about?
The Holburne is often on UK lists of best museums to visit outside London for its excellently curated shows of artists from Thomas Gainsborough to Anthony Fry—it has a regularly changing program of exhibitions of artists from both home and abroad. Housed in an historic 19th-century mansion where its eponymous baronet lived for most of his life with his three unmarried sisters, it's an attraction in itself as well as for all the stuff within it collected by Sir William Holburne—elaborate, ornate and embellished, intricate, complicated, and curlicued trinkets, furniture, and art. Anything from glossy majolica to vellum portrait miniatures, from silver-gilt tableware, to Netherlandish genre scenes are found here.

A museum's permanent collection is its defining feature: How was this one?After a refurbishment completed in 2011, the museum has become much more user friendly, more polished and the collection of decorative arts and paintings are much better displayed. Gainsborough's portraits and paintings are the main attraction, a man who lived in and loved Bath, but also the works of Guardi, Stubbs, Ramsay and Zoffany.

Exhibits keep us coming back. What can we expect?The space, for an old house made new, is incredibly well thought out, fresh and light-filled. Shifting pace from luxuriously elegant galleries to small investigative nooks, the displays are imaginative and reflective. Everything feels full of focused instructive purpose and the temporary exhibits are mostly hits. Shows like Michel Petry's 'In the Realm of the Gods' explored the ley lines hidden beneath the city of Bath since the time of the Ancient Britons by creating a brand new glass ley line.

What did you make of the crowd?
People come for at least half a day and the kids can go wild outside in the Sydney Pleasure Gardens around the museum. Everyone wants to see the Gainsboroughs—his oil painting of the Byam Family is popular—especially those with an attachment to the local area. There are also talks and workshops which bring in a lot of visitors.

On the practical tip, how were the facilities?
No problem getting around, plenty of space so you don't have to be pressed nose to nose with other exhibition goers. A tip: arrive early in the morning when the crowds are at their least and it's relatively quiet.

Gift shop: obligatory, inspiring—or skip it?
There's plenty to go for in the gift shop from homeware to stationery and the obligatory prints. There are paperweights and lovely books explaining the collection and past exhibition catalogues. The books are what I'd go for, but the sweet little pocket mirrors with decorative art from the collection on the lids make a lovely token gift.

Is the café worth a stop, or should we just plan on going elsewhere?
The café is lovely, modern, and built in a new glass add-on to the main building and looking out onto the garden through floor to ceiling glass windows. It's won some design awards and is run by unmarked chain Benugo which has its pros and cons. Overall the food is quality, freshly baked scones and pastries, and very good soups with local sourced ingredients. Being a chain though, I find their coffee pretty pat.

Can we do the museum if we're short on time?
Sure you can. Take a cursory glance at most bits, or if you've already read up on the life and times of the main collection artists, simply go see the temporary exhibitions and avoid the main collection. Highlights not to miss are the Witcombe Cabinet from 1697 (so intricate and beautiful); Susini's Crouching Venus sculpture from 1600; and Guardi's 1760 Coast Scene oil painting (breathtaking capture of light).