Friends’ Newsletter and Magazine October 2016 1 A MESSAGE TO FRIENDS sorry condition when bought and the article traces the conservation required to allow the watercolour to the The cover images for this edition comprise illustrations displayed in all its true glory. You may remember seeing from two of the main articles. The back cover shows a it for yourselves in an exhibition in National Museum tulip vase designed by William Burges, the designer of Cardiff held last year. Cardiff Castle and Castell Coch. It is a recent acquisition by the Museum and is one of four that form part of the The other watercolour is one of a series of twelve that elaborate decoration for the Summer Room in Cardiff Thomas painted detailing the stages involved in tin-plating Castle. The four were then scattered to the four winds but at the Treforest Tin-plating Works. The article looks at all are now back in public collections and this one has made the painting from a medical and industrial viewpoint. It it safely home to Cardiff. The article explains both its first appeared in the Journal of Occupational Medicine and significance as part of the decoration of the room and the was spotted by a Friend who thought it deserved a wider importance of its acquisition. audience. I need, therefore, to thank David Williams for his work in bringing it before you. Additional thanks go The front cover appropriately features a print from another to Kay Kays for providing the image. front cover. It is from a book by the German artist and naturalist, Maria Sibylla Merian. The Library of National Those of you who have visited St Teilo's Church at St Museum Cardiff holds three volumes of a ground-breaking Fagans will be aware of the many images that adorn the study of butterflies and moths by her. The article explains interior. One of these featured in an article in March 2015 the significance of these works as well as showing three edition but I am pleased that the author has provided more of the one hundred prints that the Library also holds. another on a painting of St Margaret killing a dragon. The Next year marks the 300th anniversary of her death and it article sorts out the whys and wherefores of showing such is to be hoped that the Museum will mark the occasion by a deed in Wales. giving visitors a chance to see more of these prints that combine science with artistic beauty. The final article looks at the work of Maurice Marinot, a French 20th century artist, who started as a painter but A third article explores further treasures held by the Library. became enthused by the artistic possibilities of glass. The These are the special bindings made at Gregynog for books Museum holds a significant number of his works covering published by the Gregynog Press. The article sets out the paintings and drawings as well as works in glass. Thanks history of the press and the people involved in producing need to go to Rhodri Viney for sourcing the article and the bindings. obtaining permission to use it. Did you know that Hillary Clinton, now in the middle of As usual there is a Museum News section giving snippets the campaign to become the first female President of the of what has been happening at the Museum's various sites. USA, had a Welsh background? Well, I for one did not. The Friends News section is devoted this time to reports So it is very timely that our final main article explores her of two of the visits organised by members of the Friends Welsh connections. They exist on both her father’s and committee which are supported and enjoyed by you. mother's side and can be traced back to immigrants from Wales in the early nineteenth century. I will finish by giving a plug for both the Prints and Drawings Study Room and the Library. As you will see Turning to the shorter articles, there are two that feature from articles in this edition they house treasures that are watercolours by Thomas Henry Thomas as their subject. well worth seeing. If you know what you would like to As well as being a founder of Amgueddfa Cymru, he was look at, all you need to do is to book an appointment and also a keen artist (amongst a host of other pursuits). The the staff will be more than willing to welcome you. Museum recently acquired a watercolour by Thomas of the Grand Canyon in Yellowstone National Park. It was in a Diane Davies Next Edition Diane Davies Contributions for inclusion in the April 2017 edi- 9 Cyncoed Rise, Cyncoed, Cardiff CF23 6SF tion should be submitted by the end of January Tel: 02920 752464 2017. Email: [email protected] or/neu Please send items, either electronically or by [email protected] post, to the Editor. Friends of National Museum of Wales is a member of the British Association of Friends of Museums 2 CONTENTS MISCELLANY ARTICLES The Works of Maurice Marinot 10 William Burges’s Tulip Vase 4 T. H. Tomas: Yellowstone Canyon 16 Gregynog Press Special Bindings 7 The Letter in the Lamp 18 Maria Sibylla Merian 12 Art and Occupation 21 Hillary Clinton’s Welsh Ancestry 20 St Margaret and the Dragon 24 A MESSAGE TO OUR READERS 2 MUSEUM NEWS 26 FROM THE CHAIRMAN 3 FRIENDS NEWS & ACTIVITIES 28 Cover illustrations Front cover: Cover from Volume 1 of Maria Sibylla Merian’s Raupenbuch (Hand coloured engraving, 210cm x 170cm, n.d.) © Amgueddfa Cymru / National Museum Wales [see article on page 12] Back cover: William Burges, Tulip Vase (White stoneware, hand-painted and gilded, Height 36cm, Diameter 21cm, 1874) © Amgueddfa Cymru / National Museum Wales [see article on page 4] ed museums of ‘folk’ and social life in Europe, if not the FROM THE CHAIRMAN world. On February 4th this year, on a rather cold and wet Fifty years ago, when I had just finished at university and morning, I was invited, together with a number of other was waiting to start my first teaching post as a history people including the then Welsh Government Deputy teacher, I spent a happy summer vacation working as a Minister for Culture, Sport and Tourism Ken Skates, to a ‘gofalwyr’ (keeper) in St Fagans. The summer of 1966 was very special event at St Fagans National History Museum. special in more ways than one and I particularly remember one Saturday afternoon in July when there were hardly any The event was the ‘topping out’ ceremony for the new visitors to the Museum. Yes, it was the afternoon of the main building. I must admit that before attending, I had World Cup Final between England and Germany! never heard of such a ceremony, and certainly had no idea of what to expect. However, everything soon became My experience of working in St Fagans, looking much clear as it was explained to me that the practice of ‘topping more closely than ever before at the buildings and the out’, a ceremony which has its origins way back in the items on display, helped me to appreciate even more fully Viking period, occurs once a building has reached its the richness and variety of what the National History highest point, and involves placing a branch of a tree Museum has to offer. symbolically on the top of the building in celebration. As Marcus Garvey, the Jamaican civil rights leader Marcus During the visit, to what can best be described as a build- Garvey famously said: “A people without knowledge of the their ing site, we were were asked to imagine, with the help of past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots”. artist drawings, what the buildings might look like once they are finished and furnished. Exciting times indeed for National Museum Wales, across all its sites, continues to the National History Museum as it continues further to strive to give people of all ages and backgrounds this map help interpret to visitors from across the world the diverse of the past, thereby helping to ensure that people who visit experiences of Wales and its people throughout the ages. develop firmer roots and greater historical understanding. After the visit, as I drove back home, I reflected on how In our small way, as Friends, through our active interest the museum at St Fagans had grown over the years from and support, we are also helping National Museum Wales its small beginnings in the late 1940s to what it is today. In achieve these objectives. particular, I thought about the vision of the people who strove to make it one of the finest and most highly regard- Richard Carter 3 A TULIP VASE DESIGNED BY WILLIAM BURGES FOR CARDIFF CASTLE, 1874 range of historical styles, architects would create a new style worthy of the Victorian age. Burges inherited signif- icant wealth, enabling him as a young architect to travel Andrew Renton widely in Europe and as far as Turkey, while also studying the arts of Japan, India, Scandinavia and North Africa. As mgueddfa Cymru is delighted with its recent ac- a result, his work is distinguished by its imaginative but quisition of a remarkable pottery vase designed by informed use of multifarious sources, most obviously the A William Burges (1827-1881) for the Summer architecture and design of mediaeval Europe but including Smoking Room at Cardiff Castle, the pseudo-mediaeval those of the Islamic world and East Asia, Pompeii and extravaganza he created for John Patrick Crichton-Stuart, Assyria.