Dame Rosalind Savill, DBE FSA FBA, former Director of the Wallace Collection, passed away on 27th December 2024.
Born in 1951, Ros joined the Collection as museum assistant in 1974, rising to become Director in 1992 and remaining in that post for nearly two decades. Although an authority on French porcelain, she was perhaps best known for her transformation of the Collection’s principal galleries into a glorious riot of aristocratic opulence.
In 2000, her ambitious Centenary Project followed; a restaurant appeared in the newly glazed-over central courtyard, and extending and revitalising the lower-ground-floor created Education workrooms, a Lecture Theatre, additional Library and Archives space, an ‘open’ Reserve Gallery displaying artworks previously hidden in store, a Special Exhibitions Gallery, and a Conservation Gallery designed to highlight the work of the in-house conservation team, exploring aspects of the construction of furniture and armour (the two principal disciplines treated in-house) and incorporating a central display-area featuring changing exhibitions on a conservation theme.
Ros championed academic excellence at our institution, despite its small size. She strongly believed in the value of research, both curatorial and conservation. Notably, she allocated half a day per week for her conservation team to dedicate to research, a rare practice at the time. She resisted outsourcing conservation, emphasizing the importance of in-house expertise. This fostered a close collaboration between curators and conservators, working together on all aspects of art-work care including moving and re-display.
In retirement Ros continued to pursue her academic and scholarly interests, publishing “Everyday Rococo: Madame de Pompadour and Sevres Porcelain” in 2021, and to the very end she maintained her involvement with art, museums, and education, serving on committees and in Trustee positions. Crucially, however, we who were there during the Ros years all agree that working with her was always fun. We felt hugely privileged and empowered to be part of the Wallace Collection, sharing her motivation and her love of the place. Her academic, curatorial and Directorial achievements were rewarded in 2009 by a Damehood, but I think she valued the regard of her staff, supporters and friends, and her knowledge that she had done the very best that she could for the Wallace Collection, even more than the granting of that honour.
David Edge, Armourer, metalwork Conservator, and former Head of Conservation at the Wallace Collection between 2004 and 2020.
Jurgen Huber, ACR, Senior Furniture Conservator at the Wallace Collection from 2004 to the present.