The first major catalogue of the Parliamentary Art Collection is now online: available via the website Archive.org.

‘A Catalogue of paintings, drawings, engravings, and sculpture in The Palace of Westminster’ was compiled by curator Richard B. Walker between 1959 to 1977. It comprises several volumes.

As he produced this vast catalogue, Richard Walker worked both as Art Adviser to the Ministry of Works (a past government department), and Curator of Works of Art at the Palace of Westminster.

When Maurice Bond (then Clerk of Records) published his study ‘Works of Art in the House of Lords’ in 1980, he recognised Walker’s endeavour as;

A definitive guide to the total collections in the Palace of Westminster as they stood in 1976.

Curators and researchers still use the text today for its insight into works in Parliament’s Heritage Collections, and the background to the history of the Palace itself. It is also celebrated for its wider insight into nineteenth-century British art and portraiture. 

Until now, the work had never been formally published. Instead, copies were deposited at consultation libraries including the Courtauld Institute of Art and the Victoria & Albert Museum. Heritage Collections at Parliament have now digitised and uploaded a copy, which includes later supplements and amendments up to 1988, to the open-access library of Archive.org. 

The Walker Catalogue, as it is often termed for short, can now be accessed by anybody with internet access, and it is also text searchable (via Archive.org’s search function).  It offers rich insight into many of the items in our holdings, images of which can be called up and explored via our search pages.