When Daniel Defoe visited Hamilton Palace in 1706, he remarked that 'the pictures, the furniture and the decoration of every thing is not to be describ'd but by saying that every thing is exquisitely fine and suitable to the genius of the great possessors'. During the nineteenth century, the 10th Duke's collecting activities made the Palace internationally famous, a veritable treasure trove of amazing paintings, furniture and objets d'art which travellers came from far and wide to admire. Now dispersed throughout the world, many of these items are prime exhibits in important museums, and a selection has been reassembled here, to give some idea of the richness of that unique but vanished collection.