Revealing the stories of a world-class art collection.
Built up over 400 years by the Cavendish family and their descendants, The Portland Collection is vast and varied. The World’s Mine Oyster: Art, Nature and Collecting the Globe explores the stories behind the collection for the first time, revealing how the Cavendish family saw and used the natural world, both at home and across the world.
Visit to discover a museum of extraordinary objects and fascinating stories. See silver, tapestry, paintings and jewels, plus returning star items that visitors know and love – such as Michelangelo’s ‘Madonna of Silence’ or the pearl earring worn by Charles I at his execution.
A highlight of the display is the newly restored A View of Antwerp. Never publicly shown before, this 3-metre-wide painting was once thought to be a generic cityscape – but conservation and recent scholarship reveals that it captures a specific moment in history.
Alongside it hang portraits of women who have shaped the collection: Bess of Hardwick; Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle; Margaret Cavendish-Bentinck, Duchess of Portland; and Winifred Cavendish-Bentinck Duchess of Portland.
One was the first ever writer of science fiction, one amassed the largest collection of seashells in Europe, and one was a champion of animal welfare – whilst married to an avid hunter. For these women and their descendants, nature could be many things at once: a source of beauty, a subject for study, a way to earn money, a chance to do good, and a symbol of power and status.
