Perspective (interior) view of Sir Ashton Lever's Museum (Leicester Square, London) March 30, 1785 (w/c...

This watercolour was exhibited under this title at the Royal Academy, London, 1786 (cat. n. 535) The watercolour of Sir Ashton Lever's Museum depicts a rare interior view of one of England's most notable late-eighteenth century private natural history museums displaying items collected on Cook's and other voyages to Australia and the Pacific. This watercolour accords with contemporary descriptions of the Museum. The Reverend William Gilpin wrote to Mary Delany, 8 May 1786, "[Lever] has endeavoured to array his birds to the best advantage by placing them in white boxes round his rooms, and when you enter you are presented with a succession of rooms, still multiplied by a mirror at the end, everywhere invested with these little white appartments ... He would say, I doubt not, that he spread a white ground behind his birds to show their colours more advantageously, but in that I think he is deceived. His rooms are so light that his birds would detach themselves from any ground ..." see Lady Llanover ed., "The autobiography and correspondence of Mary Granville, Mrs Delany", 1861-62, vol. II, p.349.