An Amateur’s Passion

The Museum’s founder, Lord Fitzwilliam, was an enthusiastic collector of prints. In his lifetime he amassed around 40,000 loose impressions and devoted significant time and energy arranging them into albums of varying sizes to keep on the shelves of his library. His collection reflects his broad taste, ranging from etchings by Rembrandt to works by other highly skilled but less fashionable printmakers. This exhibition looks at what interested Fitzwilliam most in acquiring and ordering his print collection and will feature examples of his albums, rarely seen in public but offering a fascinating insight into the mind of a late 18th-century collector.