The story
In a small market town in County Durham stands what looks like a French chateau lifted straight out of the Loire. It was built as a museum from the start by John Bowes, the illegitimate son of an earl who made his money in coal, and his wife Joséphine, a French actress and painter. They designed it together as a public gallery for the ordinary people of the north of England, though both died before it opened in 1892.
The most loved single object is the Silver Swan, a life-size silver automaton made in 1773 with more than 2,000 moving parts. Wound up, it preens, dips its neck toward the rippling glass rods around it and appears to catch and swallow a fish. It still performs once a day.
Around it hang paintings the Bowes bought in quantity in Paris, among them an El Greco, a Goya portrait and a Canaletto, alongside vast holdings of French furniture, ceramics and costume.
