Illustrations from the Wellcome Institute Library. Earl's Court House from John Hunter to Robert Gardiner Hill.

The mansion and gardens which John Hunter constructed as a country residence and biological research station at Earl's Court in London became in due course a private lunatic asylum for ladies, although the building's connexion with Hunter was not one which the later proprietors liked to publicize. A detailed history of the house has never been written, and it may be that the documents for such a history do not survive. The purpose ofthis note is to introduce two pictures in the Wellcome Institute library which portray the house and gardens, the first as they were in Hunter's time and the second after the property had been turned into an asylum. Like other documents describing the house, the pictures are not neutral depictions but illustrate the partiality of those who commissioned or made them.