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6 unusual facts about Burlington House


A Private View at the Royal Academy, 1881

The room is Gallery III, the largest and most imposing room at Burlington House.

Burlington House

The 4th Duke's younger son Lord George Cavendish and a Devonshire in-law, the 3rd Duke of Portland, each used the house for at least two separate spells.

Denham may have acted as his own architect, or he may have employed Hugh May, who certainly became involved in the construction after the house was sold in an incomplete state in 1667 to Richard Boyle, 1st Earl of Burlington, from whom it derives its name.

Ettore Modigliani

In 1930 Modigliani was appointed Knight Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire for the realization of the exhibition of Italian art at Burlington House in London.

Linear B

In 1935, the British School at Athens was celebrating its fiftieth anniversary with an exhibition at Burlington House, London.

William Hardy Wilson

In 1923 his work was hung in the Exhibition of Australian Art at Burlington House, London.


Hugh May

It is possible that May was the architect of the first Burlington House, for Sir John Denham, and he certainly advised the Earl of Burlington after he purchased the house in 1667.

Publication of Darwin's theory

Joseph Dalton Hooker, John Tyndall and Thomas Huxley now formed a group of young naturalists holding Darwin in high regard, basing themselves in the Linnean Society of London which had just moved to Burlington House, Piccadilly, London, near the Royal Society.

Vigil of the Princes

The oil painting was produced by Frank Beresford as the official painting of the King's lying-in-state, and was exhibited for the first time at the Royal Academy exhibition of 1936 at Burlington House.


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