Gallery’s oldest painting on display in Continental Collecting exhibition

The Crucifixion by Giovanni di Paolo, currently on display at Touchstone's.

Touchstone's Art Gallery’s new exhibition from the permanent collection, Continental Collecting, focuses on paintings by Continental European artists made prior to the turn of the 20th Century.

The exhibition features some the Gallery’s oldest paintings, which were brought together by a collector called Thomas Kay (1841-1914). Kay, a wealthy pharmacist, gave the paintings to his native Heywood in 1912 and they became part of the Gallery’s collection when local government was re-organised in 1974.

In addition, paintings made by Kay himself on a visit to Egypt are on display together with objects relating to his pharmaceutical business kindly loaned by Stockport MBC Heritage Service.

The Gallery’s oldest painting, The Crucifixion by Giovanni di Paolo, which was listed by the Sunday Telegraph as one of the best fifty paintings outside of London earlier this year, is a highlight of this impressive exhibition.

Many of the paintings in the exhibition are part of the National Inventory of Continental European Paintings, a project to undertake new research and catalogue all 22,000 pre-20th century Continental European oil paintings in UK public collections.

The project is co-ordinated by the University of Glasgow and Touchstones Rochdale took part in the first phase, with new research undertaken. The results are available online at: www.vads.ac.uk/collections/NIRP/intro.html

In addition there are a number of hands-on activities for families including the chance to dress up as a character from one of the paintings.