The Ince Blundell collection

Ince Blundell Hall

The original statues of Zeus Ammon|, Aphrodite| and Eros| are all from the Ince Blundell collection.

With a collection of 599 pieces in total including over 400 ancient marble and bronze sculptures, the Ince Blundell collection is one of the largest collections of Classical antiquities in England. Unlike so many other collections from English country houses, the Ince Blundell collection has remained relatively intact and to this day remains one of the most unique and important collections in England.

Acquired by Henry Blundell during the late 18th century, the majority of the collection is now in the care of National Museums Liverpool. The history of the collection and that of Henry the collector himself provides a fascinating insight into the trends of British collections and the Italian art market at that time.

Garden Temple, Ince Blundell Hall

The first pieces of the collection were housed in the grand hall (dating back to 1720) on the estate at Ince Blundell in Lancashire in the United Kingdom, surrounded by fifty acres of beautiful parks and woodland. Henry later had two extensions to his property built to accommodate his ever-expanding collection: the Garden Temple (built in 1792) and a circular, domed building based on the Pantheon in Rome (completed in 1810). Liverpool City Council accepted the gift of the collection on behalf of the museum in 1959.

Pantheon, Ince Blundell Hall

Further reading

• 'The Ince-Blundell Collection of Classical Sculpture
  Volume 1: The Female Portraits - part 1', Jane Fejfer and Edmund Southworth (London, 1991)
• 'The Ince-Blundell Collection of Classical Sculpture
  Volume 1: The Roman Male Portraits - part 2', Jane Fejfer (Liverpool, 1997)
• 'The Ince-Blundell Collection of Classical Sculpture
  Volume 2: The Ash Chests and other Funerary Reliefs', Glenys Davies (Mainz, 2007)
• 'A Catalogue of the Ancient Marbles at Ince-Blundell Hall', Bernard Ashmole (Oxford 1929)
• 'The Ince-Blundell Collection: Collecting Behaviour in the Eighteenth Century', Journal of the History of Collections 3, number 2 (1991), pp219-234, Edmund Southworth