Rachel Kneebone brings porcelain into conversation with the Wallace Collection

The Wallace Collection has never been afraid of inviting contemporary artists into one of Britain's grandest collections. Over the past two decades, figures including Lucian Freud, Damien Hirst, Flora Yukhnovich and Grayson Perry have all been asked to place modern works among its Old Masters, French decorative arts and celebrated Sèvres porcelain.

This autumn, it is the turn of the sculptor Rachel Kneebone, whose intricate white porcelain creations will occupy rooms more commonly associated with Fragonard, Boucher and the opulence of 18th century France. The result promises to be less a conventional exhibition than a dialogue across three centuries of artistic practice.

Metamorphoses, opening in September, will see nine of Kneebone's sculptures installed throughout Hertford House, including two new works created specifically for the exhibition. Rather than occupying a single gallery, the sculptures will appear throughout the museum, encouraging visitors to encounter them unexpectedly among one of Britain's finest collections of European art.

The choice of artist is a thoughtful one. At first glance, Kneebone's porcelain appears worlds apart from the refinement and symmetry traditionally associated with the material. Her sculptures twist, fold and spill across themselves in dense, organic forms that seem to exist somewhere between movement and collapse. Limbs emerge before disappearing back into tangled masses of clay, while polished white surfaces catch and scatter light, giving the impression that the works are constantly shifting before the viewer's eyes.

Yet the apparent contrast disguises a number of deeper connections.

Porcelain has long occupied a privileged position within the Wallace Collection. The museum houses one of the world's greatest collections of Sèvres porcelain, objects prized not simply for their craftsmanship but for the illusion of perfection they create. Kneebone works with the same material but pursues almost the opposite effect. Where 18th century porcelain celebrated order and elegance, her sculptures embrace ambiguity, instability and transformation.

The exhibition's title points directly towards that idea. Drawing inspiration from Ovid's Metamorphoses, Kneebone explores bodies and forms caught in a perpetual state of change. Nothing appears entirely fixed. Figures dissolve into ornament, ornament becomes architecture and familiar shapes refuse to settle into comfortable definitions.

Several works respond directly to the Wallace Collection itself. One newly commissioned sculpture, Bower, takes inspiration from Fragonard's The Swing, one of the museum's most celebrated paintings. Elsewhere, sculptures influenced by dance and movement are positioned alongside Baroque bronzes and decorative interiors, inviting visitors to notice rhythms and gestures that span vastly different artistic periods.

Such interventions have become an increasingly important part of museum practice.

Rather than treating historic collections as static monuments, institutions are increasingly using contemporary artists to encourage fresh ways of looking at familiar works. When successful, these conversations enrich both sides. Modern art gains historical depth, while centuries old collections are viewed with renewed curiosity rather than simple reverence.

Kneebone is particularly well suited to that task because her work has always been informed by the history of art. Classical mythology, literature and sculpture sit alongside references to the human body and contemporary experience, creating works that feel unmistakably modern while remaining deeply rooted in older traditions.

The Wallace Collection has often demonstrated that great museums need not choose between preserving the past and engaging with the present. Metamorphoses continues that tradition, placing one of Britain's most distinctive contemporary sculptors in conversation with masterpieces that have shaped artistic taste for generations.

The encounter promises to remind visitors of something easily forgotten.

The most enduring works of art rarely belong entirely to their own time. They continue to acquire new meanings every time another generation learns to look at them differently.