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Celtic Collections and Imperial Connections

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Celtic Collections and Imperial Connections Celtic collections and imperial connections Sally Foster examines the work of the Victoria & Albert Museum’s circulation department in the late 19th century, to explore the reasons behind a growth in the production of plaster casts of early medieval sculpture ith the V&A (Victoria and wider educational and social The central court casts of Scottish early medieval and Albert Museum) benefits through an appreciation of the National (post-Roman/pre-Romanesque) Wat Dundee planning of ‘high art’ (from 1857 to 1899 Museum of Ireland, sculpture – then commonly to open by 2016, it is timely to the V&A was called the South as we now know it, referred to as ‘Celtic crosses’. This reflect on the earlier role of the Kensington Museum, and was in the 1890s. Note flurry of activity coincided with V&A in Scotland. At the end of part of a wider complex of state- the replicas of Irish the tail end of the V&A Circulation the long 19th century substantial funded cultural and scientific high crosses Department’s dogged advocacy collections of plaster casts of local, institutions that were based in this (image courtesy of reproductions, the success early medieval sculpture appeared district of London). National Museum and detail of which in Scotland in quick succession in museums in of Ireland) was in no small part down to the Ireland, Scotland, Wales and the Why replicas? professional networking that took Isle of Man. These were intended Today we are often quick to place between curators at the for wide public consumption. The dismiss replicas of archaeological annual conference of the newly fuel for this came from the so- things as inauthentic copies, but formed Museums Association. The called Circulation Department of their production and exhibition surviving cast collections embody the V&A, which from the 1880s was a very significant and serious these important relationships, as administered grants to ‘provincial’ enterprise in the long 19th century. we shall see. museums across Britain and The V&A’s Cast Court dating From the 1830s, but mainly Ireland that were preferentially from the 1870s is the most famous in the second half of the 19th for ‘reproductions’: replicas in the example of this in the British Isles. century, there was an efflorescence form of plaster casts of sculpture, Surviving replicas are now historic of production of plaster casts electrotypes of metalwork and things in their own right. Behind of early medieval sculptures in fictile ivories. The Circulation their creation, circulation, use and Europe, primarily the Isles of Department also facilitated after-life lies a series of specific Britain and Ireland. Antiquarians, plaster cast production through relationships that determined why, museums and others manufactured, practical advice and support, as when and in what circumstances exchanged and circulated these well as lending their collections for they were valued, or not. In among each other, mainly in temporary display. The motivation Scotland, between 1901 and 1911, Europe between the signatories of was South Kensington’s agenda Glasgow, Dundee and Aberdeen the 1867 Convention for Promoting for teaching of art, improving invested in the creation and display Universal Reproduction of Works of manufactures through technical art, of bespoke collections of plaster Art for the Benefit of Museums of all 16 HISTORY SCOTLAND - MARCH / APRIL 2015 HISTORY SCOTLAND - MARCH / APRIL 2015 17 The V&A, Scotland and the multiplication of plaster casts of ‘Celtic crosses’ Countries, but also the diaspora. The The interest in early medieval monuments was overall trajectory for the production of casts of early medieval material as little more than bearers of ornament, and is quite different from that for the Classical and Renaissance material, restricted to the Christian monuments which has a longer pedigree and is much better studied. Across Europe, 19th-century nations began to define The second half of the 19th century Replicas and identity themselves through reference to early was when interest in early medieval From the mid-19th century the medieval history, as most visibly material culture at both an academic burgeoning museum network expressed in the creation of their and popular level really took off. became one of the key expressions national museums, where display of Casts often fell out of favour after of an emergent localism and, in early medieval material culture, not World War I. Their individual fate all but England, national identity. least sculpture, played a key role. The was always locally determined and From this time museums first main catalyst for the initial production institutionally specific but was bound presented the material culture of of replicas of early medieval material up with the broader debates about the the early medieval period to the had been the world fairs, beginning role of different sorts of museums, not wider public and the first modern with the illustrious London Great least the difference between art and scholarship on early medieval Exhibition of 1851. At such fairs archaeology museums. The fate of this sculpture also appeared. Developed replicas of sculpture and metalwork material was also inextricably linked mostly from scratch, the creation were required for display areas, and to the emergence and development of collections of plaster casts are in the case of jewellery for sale. For of different academic disciplines and therefore important as snapshots in the Dublin Industrial Exhibition of curatorial professions for which the time of what things people thought 1853, considerable efforts went into role of plaster casts, in particular, to be important and, given the acquiring suitable plaster casts from proved to be something of a high- political context and subject matter, around Ireland and Great Britain. profile touchstone of difference. are of particular relevance for what they may tell us about the use of archaeological material culture in relation to evolving expressions of Scottish identity. At the end of the century, while the creation of casts of early medieval material was not new (see above), the scale and manner of production were. If we can understand the nature and context of the production of these replicas we can therefore get a better appreciation of the purposes of 19th-century museum collections and develop a critical understanding of how early museums and other emerging professional institutions related to each other at both national and provincial levels The collections of plaster casts and other replicas that provincial museums acquired and displayed are the product of an environment in which they were encouraged Plaster cast of to acquire copies of things — the Nigg Pictish reproduced originals, rather than cross-slab in authentic originals — and in which, the V&A’s Cast in their own words, the ‘benighted Court. Its diverse country curator’ benefited from the collection includes advice of ‘cultured experts’, people a few examples who delivered imperial objectives of early medieval determined by those working for sculptures from what Henry Cole, the founder of Britain and Ireland the V&A, described as the ‘central (© Victoria and Albert storehouse or treasury of Science Museum, London) and Art for the use of the whole 16 HISTORY SCOTLAND - MARCH / APRIL 2015 HISTORY SCOTLAND - MARCH / APRIL 2015 17 kingdom’. We need to unpack this series of relationships. My research has probed into what was selected for display in the new Scottish Museums and who and what informed these choices, and why. The possibilities and directions to explore emerged as I worked through and recognised the potential of the surviving evidence: the physical casts themselves, the associated museum and government archives, and contemporary accounts, such as newspapers. Records occasionally included paperwork associated with the formatori, plaster moulders who museums commissioned to make the casts for them. These sources provided only dismembered clues about evolving policies, practices, ‘Selection of Reproductions of the Above: Aberdeen’s plaster casts of sculpture, electrotypes, players and their personalities, Sculptured Stones of Scotland’: Celtic Court in 1905 autotypes and photographs of art their actions and impacts, but at ‘Eastern Stones’, ‘Govan Stone’, (© Aberdeen Art in the 1890s. In 1904 the Dundee an early stage it became clear from and ‘Western Stones’. The creation Gallery & Free Library acquired ‘a series of the Scottish sources that Robert of this collection was the major new Museum Collections) casts of the finest Celtic Crosses of Ferdinand Martin (1862–1941), an initiative of the Sub-Committee for Scotland’ in a conscious effort to fill ‘Officer of the Circulation’ in the Scottish History and Archaeology. Below: An early a serious blank in their collection, V&A, played a critical role. He is James Paton, Superintendent of the photograph of which they displayed to good someone who does not feature in Museums and Art Galleries of the Glasgow’s Kelvingrove effect in a new building in 1911. In any V&A institutional histories, and City of Glasgow, handled some of Museum in 1901, Aberdeen, a major extension to its whose appearance in V&A archives the practicalities, helped by James shortly after it opened. Art Gallery and Industrial Museum is also very slight. Dalrymple Duncan. Dundee’s (© Museums opened as the Sculpture Gallery museum collection was in line with the Association (www. in 1905 and was an occasion of Celtic collections South Kensington ethos: ‘To educate museumsassociation. immense civic pride, stage-managed When the Glasgow International in Art, Architecture, Natural History, org), reproduced by by James Murray MP, in particular. Exhibition opened in 1901, its and Archaeology the inhabitants permission of the The new building housed on its purpose-built centrepiece, the of Dundee’. On the advice of National Library ground floor a large collection of ‘Glasgow Art Galleries’, now the Professor Gerard Baldwin Brown, of Scotland) plaster casts of sculpture ranging Kelvingrove Museum, housed an art historian at the University from prehistory to the 18th century.
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