BEFORE Sir William and Lady Constance Burrell donated their spectacular collection to the City of Glasgow in 1944, the couple had rarely purchased objects from ancient civilisations.

“The decision to change it from a private art collection which had decorated the walls of their home to a public display sparked something in Burrell,” explains Laura Bauld, who has curated the first exhibition to be held at the museum since it re-opened earlier this year.

“He was keen it matched up to other big civic collections he would have been familiar with, such as the British Museum and the V&A. He wanted it to be representative of worldwide history, and while he had one or two pieces from ancient civilisations, he realised there was a gap to be filled.”

Bauld adds: “So, between 1944 and his death in 1958, Burrell acquired hundreds and hundreds of objects from Ancient Rome, Ancient Egypt, Ancient Greece and Mesopotamia – the region now covering Iraq, Kuwait, Turkey and Syria.

“And he managed to acquire some really incredible objects.”

Some of those acquisitions will be on display in The Burrells’ Legacy: A Great Gift to Glasgow, which opens today. It is the inaugural exhibition to be held at The Burrell Collection since it reopened in March 2022, following a major refurbishment and redesign.

“One of the most popular objects with visitors, which is back on show for the first time since the museum closed in October 2016, is a fragment of a mosaic floor from 100 BC,” explains Bauld.

“Purchased in 1954, it shows a flamboyant cockerel, with golden wings and long green tail feathers, and would originally have been used to decorate the floor of a wealthy Roman’s villa.

“Burrell was sometimes very unfairly labelled a ‘millionaire magpie’ who bought up anything and everything he liked, but that was not the case at all. He did a lot of research.”

She adds: “He wanted to make sure he was buying things that meant something to the people coming to see them.”

Burrell’s dedicated research is apparent in a collection of books and catalogues donated to Glasgow in 1961 after Lady Constance died.

“There are around 1000 books in the collection, including catalogues and art history volumes,” says Bauld.

“Many were from the 40s and 50s, so absolutely the most up to date literature he could have obtained at the time.”

She adds, smiling: “He has scribbled over so many of them – in one of the Ancient Egyptian catalogues he has even tried to translate the hieroglyphics, and had a go at writing his own name too.”

Burrell’s annotated notebook relating to a display of Greek ceramics will be displayed alongside the collection as part of the new exhibition.

“It shows how he was learning and developing his knowledge – he was self-taught, and I think that is something to be celebrated, especially when you consider that by this point, he was in his late 70s and early 80s,” adds Bauld.

“This really was a lifelong passion for him, and he wanted to get it right for the people of Glasgow.”

For the first time, works the Burrells gifted to Berwick will be shown in Glasgow. The family lived in Hutton Castle, where a great many of their treasured artworks were on display and used in daily life.

In 1949 they donated 42 paintings to the town, establishing the Berwick Art Gallery. They also donated more than 300 decorative art objects, including Chinese and Japanese porcelain, Venetian glass and pewter.

“It created a bit of tension with Glasgow Corporation,” says Bauld, smiling. “In a letter to Burrell, Tom Honeyman, the then director of art galleries for the city, begs him not to send a particular artwork to Berwick, saying it would be ‘lamentable if it left the collection’. But Burrell stuck to his guns. Even though he had donated the collection to the city, he still had some say in what happened to it, obviously. It’s lovely to be reuniting these works after 70 years.”

The exhibition offers a rare opportunity to see artwork acquired by Burrell, on loan from Northumberland Museum, alongside delicate works on paper seldom on show for their protection.

“There are also several examples of Japanese Imari ware porcelain, which is interesting as there are no Japanese ceramics in Glasgow whatsoever,” says Bauld.

“We do have some wonderful Japanese woodcut prints, created in the 1600 to 1800s, which were always a bit unusual in that they stood alone amidst the rest of the collection.

“Had the porcelain been there too, would we have thought of Burrell as a collector of Japanese art in a way we had not considered before? So we explore a bit about that in the exhibition too.”

The exhibition also considers the search for somewhere to build The Burrell Collection and the ongoing important role of the Sir William Burrell Trust, which was established after his death to allow the collection to continue to grow.

Among the show’s main attractions are two recent purchases by the Trustees, which visitors can view for the first time – L’Implorante, by French sculptor Camille Claudel, the first sculpture by a woman to enter the Collection – and A Mallard Rising, by Glasgow Boy and Burrell favourite Joseph Crawhall.

The painting was originally put up for sale in 1935 but while Burrell bought 11 Crawhall works at the auction, he missed out on this one. Nearly 77 years later, the Burrell trustees managed to finally acquire it for the collection.

Bauld adds: “It’s been an absolute joy working on this exhibition. Burrell was such a thorough, prolific collector, we could have shown so much more.

“It is ever-evolving, too. The Burrell Collection is not a time capsule. It’s here to inspire future generations.”

The Burrells’ Legacy: A Great Gift to Glasgow opens on today..