Putting together a cohesive and compelling exhibition with the contents of a private collection is a challenge for any curator. Personal taste can seem arbitrary and esoteric when placed in a gallery, and collectors are often portrayed as egocentric moneyed eccentrics. This is not the case with Beauty and Power. Peter Marino, one of the world’s leading architects, is thanked profusely in the accompanying booklet for his generosity in lending the works and sponsoring the exhibition. We discover nothing, however, about his personal taste or how he chooses to display his fine collection of bronze statuettes.

Instead, we are treated to a potted history of Renaissance and Baroque sculpture, starting with one of Michelangelo’s followers Baccio Bandinelli and his Samson and the Philistine, made in Florence in the 1550s, and ending in eighteenth-century France with work such as Corneille van Cleve’s Bacchus and Ariadne. The choices and positioning of the statuettes seem arbitrary. Some are duplicates, such as two versions of Robert Le Lorrain’s Andromeda, the second of which is only included because it belonged to Sir Francis Watson, former director of the Wallace Collection. The interpretation of each work focuses on iconographic meaning rather than delving deeply into sculptural or material characteristics.

The dark, damask-papered basement rooms are in the modern extension to the galleries and are completely devoid of architectural interest. Marino’s collection is arranged in a way suggestive of a sculpture gallery in a grand house but the characterless rooms neuter the aesthetic and decorative impact of the works. Wandering through the rooms of the Wallace and seeing similar works in the context of contemporary interiors is far more pleasurable and gives a fuller picture of the sculptures and the culture of display in the early eighteenth century.

Until Jul 25

KATIE FAULKNER