The Pope's museum: in the June 1991 issue, John Pope-Hennessy's waspish memoirs were given a stinging review by John Rowlands, then Keeper of Prints and drawings at the British Museum.(FROM THE APOLLO ARCHIVES)

From: Apollo | Date: March 1, 2006| Author: | Copyright information

Generally speaking, at the British Museum Pope-Hennessy felt less sure of himself than at the V&A, for he was unfamiliar with the collections, apart from some acquaintance with Old Master drawings, and he lacked any proper scholarly knowledge of most of them. Since he was keenly sensitive about any display of ignorance on his own part, his lack of sympathy with archaeology and his want of understanding of its aims formed an important handicap in an historical museum.

On the administrative side, Pope-Hennessy at the British Museum rightly found alarming the welter of paper that ...

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