Main photograph (at top) © Andrew Lee, by kind permission of the photographer. The remaining photographs, by the present author, may be used without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the photographer and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one. [Click on all the pictures for larger images.]

The Albert Hall, on the first floor of the former Albert Institute (now the McManus: Dundee's Art Gallery and Museum), Scotland, looking south. This hall was designed by Sir George Gilbert Scott, and built 1865-68. The stained glass in the windows was by the London firm of Clayton & Bell. The building stands on Albert Square, Dundee, and was beautifully restored and adapted to modern needs by the Glasgow firm of Page and Park in 2006-09.

Left to right: (a) Fragment of delicate early stencilling, showing original wall decoration in the hall. (b) The panelled and ribbed tunnel vault, with sparing use of stencilling. (c) One of the ribs rising from an elaborately carved corbel, with, in the upper left corner, one of the alternate ribs rising from a much smaller corbel carved like a hammerbeam.

Left: Closer view of the floral window at the top of the north gable. Right: Honour, Belief and Cheerfulness — examples of the virtues in the heads of the main windows.

Left: The arms of one of Dundee's notables, Sir William Ogilvy Dalgleish, in the north gable. Right: The top of the stairwell, showing the stained glass roundels in the windows below, representing notable Scotsmen in the fields of Literature (Sir Walter Scott, Robert Burns), Science (James Watt) and Art (Sir Henry Raeburn).

Sir William Ogilvy Dalgleish (1832-1913) was a prominent businessman and public benefactor, who had been the main donor of the galleries' electric lighting (see Gifford 114).

The Victoria Gallery.

The Victoria Gallery is in the north-east wing of the McManus, and dates from the 1880s. It was part of the extension by Dundee town architect William Alexander (1841-1904) in 1887, a project undertaken to celebrate Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee. Details found in the previous extension and Scott's original work have been repeated, so that it harmonises with the rest. The McManus website explains, "The original curved red walls, vaulted glass ceiling, ornamental plasterwork and varnished dados create an impressive setting for the City's nationally important collection of historic oil paintings." The large painting in the middle of the end wall here is one of the gallery's most prized works: Dante Gabriel Rossetti's triptych, Dante's Dream.

Related Material

Bibliography

Gifford, John. Dundee and Angus (The Buildings of Scotland). New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2012.

"McManus Refurbishment." The McManus. 1 November 2016.

Scott, Sir George Gilbert, R.A. Personal and Professional Recollections, edited by his son, G. Gilbert Scott, F.S.A. London: Sampson Low, Marston, Searle, & Rivington, 1879. Internet Archive. Contributed by the University of California Libraries. Web. 1 November 2016.

Stamp, Gavin. Gothic for the Steam Age: An Illustrated Biography of George Gilbert Scott. London: Aurum Press, 2015.

"The Victoria Gallery." The McManus. 1 November 2016.


Created 1 November 2016