Picturing Childhood; A New Perspective at Chatsworth, was Chatsworth House Trust's main exhibition in the house and garden in 2024. It celebrated children and their experience of the world as represented in art and included rarely-seen pieces from the Devonshire Collections, as well as loans from Tate and National Trust, and exciting new interactive works by contemporary artists.

Designed to appeal to people of all ages and backgrounds, the exhibition drew inspiration from Chatsworth's most playful histories and included thought-provoking, multi-sensory experiences as well as the opportunity for quiet moments to rest, read or reminisce. 

Experiential elements, developed in partnership with Sheffield-based studio Eleven, invited visitors to hopscotch their way to the entrance. 'Skystation', an installation in the Inner Court by Peter Newman, encouraged everyone to look up and experience Chatsworth’s historic spaces in new ways.  

Skystation by Peter Newman

Artist Abigail Reynolds produced a series of installations for the house, garden and park inspired by T.H White's 1938 children's book, 'The Sword in the Stone'. The viewfinders encouraged explorers to see Chatsworth from a 'new perspective'; through the eyes of a hawk, a songbird, or through the multi-lens eye of a 'trilobite'. 

'Hawk' by Abigail Reynolds

Inspired by menus from the 6th Duke of Devonshire’s archive, food historian and scent artist Tasha Marks recreated the aromas of the meal a 13-year-old Princess Victoria, later Queen Victoria, may have been served on the occasion of her first formal dinner with adults in 1832, held in the Great Dining Room at Chatsworth. These were contained under silver cloches which visitors could 'lift and sniff'!

'Aromas of dinners past' by Tasha Marks

The pieces selected for Picturing Childhood included paintings, sketches, literature, costume and sculpture, and spanned five centuries, from the Tudors to the present day. 

Artworks by artists including Raphael, Anthony van Dyck, Edwin Landseer, and Lucien Freud, were displayed in historic spaces throughout the house, such as the Chapel, the State Apartment and the Oak Room. Some were displayed at eye level, encouraging a deeper connection between portrait and viewer (main image).

Exploring themes ranging from family relationships to identity and colonialism, collection highlights included Old Master drawings by Carracci and intergenerational representations of the Devonshire family by Joshua Reynolds. These were complemented by institutional loans, such as two Johan Zoffany paintings from Tate, that highlighted growing societal interests in children’s education and upbringing in the Georgian period. 

These works were shown alongside an eighteenth-century baby carriage and a Victorian silver-gilt christening set, as well as a collection of amateur photographs from the Devonshire family archive and a short film inspired by Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice (in which Chatsworth is the inspiration for Pemberley), a first edition of which is held in the library.

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