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'Most treasured' artist features on Bargain Hunt

Tanya GuptaSouth East
News imageMaidstone Museum Samantha Harris and Eric Knowles are sitting in the museum with books and paintings in front of them. The background is blurred and there are pictures on the walls behind them and one painting is mounted on an easel.Maidstone Museum
Samantha Harris and Eric Knowles explored the collection for Bargain Hunt

One of the "most treasured" artists in a museum collection has been showcased on the BBC's Bargain Hunt programme.

Antiques expert and TV personality Eric Knowles paid a visit to Maidstone Museum to explore the work of artist Albert Goodwin, whose work spans the 19th and 20th Centuries.

The museum in Kent holds the largest public collection of Goodwin's work with more than 200 watercolours and drawings capturing his travels around the world and his life in his home county.

The Bargain Hunt episode will soon be available to watch on BBC iPlayer.

News imageMaidstone Museum Salisbury Cathedral by Albert Goodwin is painted bathed in sunlight with its spire rising up to the heavens.Maidstone Museum
Goodwin is described as a visionary landscape painter

Curators have told how Goodwin, the seventh of nine children, was born in Boxley Road, Maidstone, in 1845.

His flair for drawing emerged as a young boy when he was working as an apprentice draper in the town.

While he was studying art, he met figures from the Arts and Crafts movement including William Morris and the art critic John Ruskin, who became his friend and mentor.

Samantha Harris, collection manager, said Goodwin was "one of Maidstone Museum's most treasured artistic figures" and the building held an exceptional collection of his work.

News imageMaidstone Museum An old brick building with a modern extension to the right of it, with a large sign reading "museum".Maidstone Museum
Media attention is raising the profile of the museum, Councillor Stephen Thompson said

The museum has also been awarded £75,000 from the Museum Renewal Fund to showcase another Maidstone-born artist, William Alexander, who is known for his depictions of 18th Century China.

Alexander, born in 1767, served as the official draughtsman on Britain's first diplomatic mission to the Chinese Qing court.

Experts said Alexander's illustrations were drawn from direct observation, offering an unprecedented view into Chinese life at the time.

The grant is to be used to develop a touring exhibition focusing on the artist's "global impact", curators have said.

News imageMaidstone Museum A watercolour of Thun in Switzerland, painted in 1898 by Albert Goodwin, shows two figures leaning on a bridge next to a tree in the foreground, with a river in the middle of the picture andthe town of Thun on a hill in the background. The roofs have red tiles.Maidstone Museum
The museum holds the largest public collection of Goodwin's work

Councillor Stephen Thompson said both Goodwin and Alexander showed Maidstone's cultural heritage and international connections.

National media attention was "helping to raise the profile of Maidstone Museum as a place of real cultural significance", he added.

The museum reopens on 11 February after its winter break.

News imageMaidstone Museum A watercolour by William Alexander painted in 1793 shows a group of Chinese people, all of different ages, and one is wearing a red hat. There is a building in the background.Maidstone Museum
William Alexander offered a directly-observed view of Chinese life at the time

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