The McLean Museum and Art Gallery wishes to make the Museum Collections available to the widest audience in a variety of different ways. Information on the collections can be found in the following ways: On the collection pages of the Museum's web site; in the Museum's long term displays; through temporary exhibitions drawn from the collection and through direct enquiries to the Museum by e-mail, letter, telephone or fax.

If you are interested in a particular object/objects that is not out on display then viewing can be arranged by prior appointment. Please note that some objects may not be available at any given time due to loans, conservation and similar reasons.

Archaeology Collection

The collection includes flints, hammer stones and other stone tools, amongst the more important items are a group of 10 Palaeolithic flint implements from Milton Street, Kent and Palaeolithic stone axes from Ireland. The collection contains largely Roman ceramic pieces and sherds with paving bricks and sandals. There is also an ancient horseshoe from Tarsus, a Carthaginian oil lamp and a votive tablet from Carthage bearing an inscription incised inscription in Phoenician referring to the deity Baal Hammon.

Egyptology Collection

The objects in the collection cover all periods of Ancient Egyptian history from the pre-dynastic Amratian culture of the Naqada period through the Old and New Kingdom dynasties to the Ptolemaic and Roman periods. The collection contains examples of objects such as pottery, shabtis, amulets, scarabs in addition to carvings, stela and other funerary equipment. There is a small collection of pre-dynastic pottery from el Amra.

The collection provides a good general selection of objects from many of the most important sites excavated by the Egypt Exploration Fund in the late nineteenth century. The sites include Abydos, Bubastis, Defenna, Deir el-Bahri, Dendera, Diospolis Parva, El Amra, Hawara, Herakleopolis Magna, Naukratis and Oxyrhynchus. The archaeologists involved in these archaeological digs were amongst the founding fathers of Egyptology and included Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie and Henri Édouard Naville. The collection contains pieces of national and international significance such as the mummy cartonnage from Herakleopolis Magna and the temple stone from the Great Temple of Bast at Bubastis.

British Art

The British Art Collection contains works dating from the eighteenth century to the contemporary period. There are nineteenth century English landscapes, English Victorian narrative, history and genre paintings with several important artists from this period represented in the collection. Particularly noteworthy are a group of five watercolours on Italian and Spanish subjects by John Frederick Lewis and a group of oil paintings on Inverclyde subjects by the marine artist Robert Salmon. In addition there significant works of high quality by Sam Bough, Gerald L. Brockhurst, Sir Alfred East, Charles Napier Hemy, Louis Bosworth Hurt, Dame Laura Knight, John Linnell, the elder; Lord Frederic Leighton, Frank Henry Mason, Sir Alfred John Munnings and works by the Irish artists Sir William Orpen and Seán Keating.

There a wide variety of printmaking techniques represented including engraving, aquatint, lithography and etching. Many of the works are early nineteenth century commercial prints but there also works by significant British printmakers such as William Daniell and William Henry Bartlett, William Lionel Wyllie, Augustus Edwin John and Edward Bawden. The collection also includes sculpture, the most notable work being a full length marble sculpture of James Watt by Sir Francis Legatt Chantrey, (currently housed in the Watt Library, Greenock). The rest of the collection consist largely of sculptural busts in plaster and marble.

Scottish Art

The Scottish Art Collection is an important public collection of art works by Scottish artists from the eighteenth century to the present day and includes a work by almost every significant Scottish artist between 1800 and 1950. Of particular note are the groups of works by Inverclyde born artists, the Glasgow Boys and the Scottish Colourists. The collection includes Scottish prints dating from 1768 to the present day with many examples of prints made by leading Scottish printmakers and prints by Inverclyde artists.

Portraiture in the eighteenth and early nineteenth century is represented by works from Allan Ramsay and Sir Henry Raeburn. Nineteenth century landscape paintings include works by Hugh William Williams, Horatio McCulloch, Waller Hugh Paton, Thomas Fairbairn, William Page Atkinson Wells and many others. Of particular note is the group of seven paintings by William McTaggart and the five works by Robert Inerarity Herdman. Other artists include many of the key figures in Scottish Art of the nineteenth century with works in a wide variety of genres including landscapes, genre paintings, portraits, architectural and wartime subjects by Sir William Quiller Orchardson, John Pettie, William Strang, James Lawton Wingate, Robert Gemmell Hutchison and John McGhie.

An important group in the development of Scottish Art in the later nineteenth century were the Glasgow Boys. They were most active from around 1880 to 1900 and their work has since became internationally renowned. They are well represented in the McLean collection with significant works, including paintings and drawings, by Sir David Young Cameron, David Gauld, Sir James Guthrie, George Henry, Edward Atkinson Hornel, Sir John Lavery, Arthur Melville, James Paterson, Robert Macaulay Stevenson and George Henry.

Of particular importance is the Museum’s unique collection of works by Inverclyde artists. The Inverclyde area has made a valuable contribution to Scottish art over the last two centuries producing artists of importance working in a wide variety of genres. The collection has significant holdings of nineteenth century works by William Clark, John Fleming, and Patrick Downie in addition to works by Thomas Carsell, Thomas Reynolds Lamont, Norman MacBeth, William Cathcart Methven and John Stewart.

The collection include many fine works from the twentieth century from a wide range of artists on a diverse range of subjects. Amongst the most famous are the Scottish Colourists who had their greatest impact in the early twentieth century from around 1900 to 1930. They are represented in the McLean Scottish Art collection with works by Francis Campbell Boileau Cadell (2 portraits), John Duncan Fergusson (2 landscapes) and Samuel John Peploe (a still life). Only works by the remaining member of the quartet, George Leslie Hunter, are absent from the collection. Other artists in the collection from the first half of the twentieth century includes George Smith, John Guthrie Spence Smith, Muirhead Bone, John Duncan, George Houston, Robert Gemmell Hutchison and James Kay. The Glasgow School of the early twentieth century is aqlso represented with works by Sir David Young Cameron, David Gauld, Sir James Guthrie, George Henry, Edward Atkinson Hornel, Sir John Lavery, James Paterson, Robert Macaulay Stevenson and George Henry.

The post Second World War period is also well represented with works from Stanley Cursiter, John MacLauchlan Milne, Alberto Morrocco, James McIntosh Patrick, Anne Redpath, Robert Sivell, Mary Nicol Neill Armour, Robert Henderson Blyth, William Crosbie, James William Hunter Cumming, David Ewart, William Russell Flint, William George Gillies and Alexander Goudie.

The collection also include a fine selection of twentieth century works by Inverclyde artists such as Patrick Downie, George Telfer Bear, Leonard Boden, Margaret Isobel Wright, William Scott, William Somerville Shanks, William Niven, Alexander Galt, Gavin Nicol, Dorothy Steel, Norman Edgar, James Watt, Iain Slack, Christie Cameron, Douglas Thomson and Ian McLeod. There are also prints by acknowledged modern masters of the medium such as David Young Cameron, Robert Bryden and Muirhead Bone (24 prints) and there is also a substantial holding of prints by the Greenock based artist William Niven (31 prints).

Inverclyde History

The Museum has an extensive collection of material relating to the social and industrial history of Inverclyde. Further details can be found on the Museum's main website.

Clyde Pottery Collection

The Clyde Pottery collection at the McLean Museum is the world's largest collection of ceramics from this pottery. The collection provides a unique resource and reference point for collectors and scholars as well as documenting an important Inverclyde industry which produced wares from 1816 to the early 1900s. The collection is special in that it not only contains finished wares but also the some of the moulds and raw materials that were used to produce them.

James Watt Collection

This collection includes plans and letters written by James Watt, tools and items used by him and images of him in the form of paintings, sculpture, prints and books.

Greenock Provincial Silver

The collection contains a wide range of pieces including teaspoons, sugar tongs, wine labels, serving trays, ladles, cups and a yachting trophy. There are pieces of undoubted quality and skill, the most important of them being John Heron’s trophy for the Northern Yacht Club Challenge Race of 1828. The collection also contains pieces by Jonas Osborn, John Taylor, William Clark and Nathaniel Hunter.

Maritime Transport Collection

The Maritime Transport collection contains items related to all forms of maritime transport. It consists mostly of photographs of ships of all kinds but also includes objects related to the subject such as merchant navy uniforms, charts and nautical instruments. The collection is an important one for the Inverclyde area since it helps to document the many vessels that were built on the Clyde via photographs, the bulk of which are from the Paterson Collect