Formally known as the Geffrye Museum, 136 Kingsland Road, E2 8EA
The Museum of the Home explores the home from 1600 to the present day, focusing on the living rooms of the urban middle classes in England, particularly London. A chronological sequence of period rooms show how homes have been used and furnished over the past 400 years, reflecting the changes in society and patterns of behaviour as well as style, fashion and taste. Its setting is the former almshouses of the Ironmongers’ Company, delightful 18th-century buildings with attractive gardens and mature trees.
On display is a Portrait of a family in an interior, oil on canvas, by an unknown artist, c.1750. The painting shows Charles-Moyse Roubel, his wife Sarah and three of their children, Paul, John and Catherine. Charles was a Huguenot who settled in Bath where he worked as a jeweller. Also on display in the 1695 Period Room, is a writing cabinet bearing the label of John Guilbaud, a cabinet maker working in London. Guilbaud was a French Protestant Huguenot, one of many who fled to England to escape religious persecution, bringing their skills with them and contributing to the enrichment of English design.