Bath Holburne Museum, Great Pulteney St, Sydney Pleasure Gardens, Somerset, South West England, UK,

The Holburne Museum (formerly known as the Holburne of Menstrie Museum and the Holburne Museum of Art) is located in Sydney Pleasure Gardens, Bath, Somerset, England. The city's first public art gallery, the Grade I listed building, is home to fine and decorative arts built around the collection of Sir William Holburne. Artists in the collection include Gainsborough, Guardi, Stubbs, Ramsay and Zoffany. The museum also provides a programme of temporary exhibitions, music performances, creative workshops, family events, talks and lectures. There is a bookshop and a café that opens out onto Sydney Gardens. The museum reopened in May 2011 after restoration and an extension designed by Eric Parry Architects, supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund. Collection The heart of the present day Collection was formed by Sir Thomas William Holburne (1793-1874). As a second son, Thomas William (generally known as William) first pursued a naval career. He ultimately inherited the Baronetcy in 1820 following the death of his elder brother Francis at the Battle of Bayonne in 1814. Details of the circumstances and pattern of Sir William's collecting are unclear, but to inherited Chinese armorial porcelain, silver and portraits he added seventeenth and eighteenth-century silver and porcelain, Italian maiolica and bronzes, Old Master paintings, portrait miniatures, books and furniture and a variety of other smaller items including Roman glass, coins, enamels, seals, gems and snuff boxes