Readers of the IAML (UK & Irl) blog will be pleased to learn of the Foundling Museum’s newest exhibition, highlighting some of the treasures from the collection of early Handel devotee, Elizabeth Legh (1694-1734). Katharine Hogg, Librarian of the Gerald Coke Handel Collection, has sent us the following to whet our appetites:
Elizabeth Legh: Lover of Musick & All Ingenious Things
Discover more about 18th-century music collector Elizabeth Legh, a devoted admirer of Handel’s music, in the current display at the Foundling Museum.
Elizabeth Legh (1694-1734) was the first collector of Handel’s music, and assembled a significant and important collection of manuscripts, many made by Handel’s own copyists shortly after they were composed. Brought up in Adlington Hall in Cheshire, from 1715 she spent much of her time at her parents’ London home in Hanover Square, near Handel’s house in Brook Street. She was a skilled harpsichord player and also a singer; several cantatas in her collection have been transposed for contralto voice. Legh was well-educated and brought up in a family which appreciated music; their Cheshire home still houses a seventeenth-century organ in the Great Hall. Her status as an unmarried woman and her inherited wealth granted her the freedom to pursue her interest in music and her passion for collecting. A copy of her draft will details the many instruments and volumes of sheet music that she owned, and her awareness of the significance of her collection and the need to preserve it for future generations. This display in the Handel Gallery offers a rare opportunity to see items from her unique collection.
Also in the display is an autograph manuscript of Handel’s Hunting Song to a text by Elizabeth’s brother Charles, which has been kept in the Legh family until 2023 when it was deposited on loan at the Foundling Museum.
The exhibition is already open to visitors and runs until 7 September 2025. Book your tickets here.