An afternoon visit to the Foundling Museum

Well this afternoon was an absolutely fascinating one spent at the Foundling Museum looking at some of the collection held there.

The Foundling Museum was initially set up as a children hospital for abandoned children in the 18th Century by Captain Thomas Coram. The musician Handel was a friend of Coram and strongly supported the hospital, putting on benefit concerts to raid money for the hospital. These concerts were one of the first public renditions of Messiah, one of Handel’s most famous pieces.

It was a collections if Handel’s work, both print and manuscript that we were looking at today. The pictures below should show some of the amazing books that we were viewing, which included a collection of works which was highly publicised earlier in the year for being a previously unknown work by Vivaldi! The whole afternoon was fascinating!