Walking around the Islamic Middle East department, gleaming lacquerware immediately draws the eye. Particularly elaborate is one painted surgical kit, dating from c.1820-40, which probably originates from Isfahan, Iran. The artefact is illuminated by its reddish-brown varnished cover, created with the papier-mache technique typical of Islamic lacquerware. Unlike the European method of applying lacquer to wood, Islamic artists typically pasted together sheets of paper to form a thick smooth surface, which was then painted in watercolour before the layer of varnish was applied.

Lacquerware was hugely popular in Iran towards the end of the Safavid Dynasty (1501-1722) and into the period of Qajar rule (1785-1925). The rule of Fath ‘Ali Shah saw a fondness in the royal court for this lacquering technique, used in artwork from the period which drew from the iconography of the last imperial dynasty in Persia – the Sassanid dynasty (224 – 651). Fath ‘Ali commissioned lacquerware pieces to establish his reign, hanging multiple lacquered portraits of himself in his royal estates and sending them as diplomatic offerings to kings overseas. The rule of his successor Muhammad Shah saw an even more concerted shift towards small lacquer paintings of the monarch to commemorate his royal authority.

This surgeon’s kit contains two drawers full of tools of extraordinary shapes, mostly made of steel, though some are of bone or mother-of-pearl and others inlaid with gold. Painted on the cover, framed by a delicate floral border, are the Holy Family along with accompanying figures. Though art of the Safavid period most commonly depicted nature and intricate patterns, this Islamic illustration of human figures and Christian iconography is not particularly unusual. The 1800s saw the conspicuous influence on Islamic artists of Christian European art entering Iran, with images of St Peter and the Holy Family, for instance, found among surviving artworks. This shift was often marked by portraits with attention to perspective and shading, rather than geometric shapes, as well as by biblical subject matter. The cross-cultural interaction was even represented in the dress and artistic representation of Muhammad Shah: the ruler introduced weapons from Europe into the Iranian arsenal and came to be depicted in European-style dress, with a military frock coat and blue sash coupled with his royal jewels and the Asian fleece ‘astrakhan’ cap.

[See image gallery at blogs.ashmolean.org] The European influence on its subject matter links this surgeon’s kit to Isfahani painter Najaf ‘Ali. A prominent artist, active from around 1815-85, his artworks often depicted the Holy Family and could have included this delicate piece. Najaf ‘Ali’s handiwork would account for the European-style figures in this image, with Mary wearing the blue material characteristic of her representation in Renaissance art. She holds on her lap the baby Jesus, clad in swaddling cloth and the scene is dominated by the swathes of red fabric in which the surrounding figures are wrapped. The women’s hair is elaborately tied, their faces round and big-eyed in a style inherited from the art of the Zand dynasty (1750-94).
The illustration on the surgeon’s kit seems consistent with confirmed artworks by Najaf ‘Ali, such as this lacquer qalamdan (pen box) pictured, signed by the creator during the Qajar period at around 1855-56. Its central panel shows a Christian saint clothed in black, surrounded by depictions of the Khaju Bridge and the Ali Qapu Palace in Isfahan and patterned with floral motifs. The landscapes pictured possibly allude to the tale of the shaikh San’an and the maiden, a story from Attar’s Conference of the Birds. According to legend, San’an journeyed to Greece where he fell in love with a Christian maiden. Having converted to Christianity at her instigation, he burned the Quran and tended to the pigs, in rejection of his former faith. Eventually he returned to Islamic practice after the desperate prayers of his followers and having felt the true love of god. This formed the subject for many Iranian art pieces at the time, yet here is combined with the image of a Christian figure in a combination of European and Islamic influences which can be observed also in the beautiful surgeon’s kit.

For more information on the Surgeon’s Kit see http://jameelcentre.ashmolean.org/object/EA1955.1.2

blog post and drawing by Freddie Davies

“Among all the angels and demons, there is one figure that incontestably merits particular attention”. Such were the words of the Paris Salon when they encountered Feuchère’s striking rendition of hell’s ruler. Encapsulated within his wings, his chin placed thoughtfully upon his hand, Satan comes across as a rather lonely figure. His brow lies furrowed as he gazes at nothing in particular. Feuchère demonstrates a certain empathy towards the devil’s predicament. He is at once both brooding and wistful; infernal but oddly relatable. As such Feuchère depicts the essentially human identity of Satan: a flawed, emotional being designated as the Adversary but doomed never to actually prevail.

Depicted as ponderous, and perhaps even melancholy, the most immediate feature of the piece is its intriguing resemblance to Auguste Rodin’s celebrated sculpture the Thinker. However, Rodin’s first conception of The Thinker was not until 1880, 46 years after Feuchère’s piece was exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1834. It is therefore considered a precursor, and casts a refreshing context over The Thinker, a statue so prominent in popular culture. The resemblance was highlighted in the 1980 exhibition The Romantics to Rodin: French Nineteenth-Century Sculpture from North American Collections in 1980, which used Feuchère as the cover illustration and Rodin’s Thinker upon the back.

 Drawing by Freddie Davies on the left, on the right, the bronze of Satan/Mephistopheles, by Jean-Jacques Feuchère

The sculpture also bears the name Mephistopheles, who was originally a demon in German folklore. He is the demon who accepts the wager of Faust’s soul in return for an abundance of knowledge and power. Evidently the harvest of souls is not as fulfilling as it could be, and the sculpture renders him as dissatisfied with his lot as Faust himself. Once again this identifies him as a rather human character, particularly with this notion of longing and unfulfillment. Mark Antokolsky, the Russian sculptor, rendered his own interpretation of Mephistopheles in 1884, in a similar seated, pensive position, but without the demonic wings, horns and spines. Starkly different to Feuchère’s dark, rich bronze, Antokolsky utilizes a pure white marble in a kind of neoclassical style, immediately likening the demon to the famously Greek pantheon of gods. Satan, always a hit with the crowds, was a popular theme for the imagination of artists in the 19^th century, influenced by the common inspirations of Goethe and Dante. Perhaps the romantics were smitten with sympathy for the demon and his association with the pitfalls of passion and emotion, rather than the tiresome virtues of reason asserted by the Enlightenment.

Lord Jeffrey Archer donated the piece – 80cm high – in 2016, in a move to reduce his tax bill by the hefty sum of approximately £48,000. Perhaps Satan broods at the realisation that he is no longer revered and dreaded as the king of hell, but has become no more than a welcome tax break for the English aristocracy.

Find this sculpture in the newly refurbished Gallery 65. More information on the object http://www.ashmolean.org/news/acquisitions/index.php?id=381

Walking into the print room in the Ashmolean I was first struck by the room itself – the friendly, musty smell from the old books lining the walls; drawers enticingly entitled ‘Turner’ or ‘Ruskin’; the small semicircle of chairs sitting in front of a table. Our group of twelve were here leaning in around a table as part of an afternoon of exclusive viewings of the drawings of Raphael, led by Western Art curator Dr Angelamaria Aceto and the Ashmolean Student Creative Board. Raphael is best known as an exemplar of Renaissance innovation, famous for his images of the Madonna and his compositions in the Vatican. Often, the focus is on his paintings, with the vast array of drawings he produced being seen as a tributary of his artistic efforts, a teaching tool for his students, or most commonly as preparatory sketches existing only to be replicated in oils. Angelamaria’s emphasis however, and a key motivation for a forthcoming exhibition in the Ashmolean this summer, is to resituate these drawings and consider them as revelatory works of art in their own right.

The drawings housed by the Ashmolean ranked among the first acquisitions of the museum and form a cornerstone of its collections. The physical pieces of paper, lying on the table encased in protective layers, are striking as objects in themselves: seemingly delicate, yet having endured the weight of 500 years of history. Indeed, the first two sketches brought out by Angelamaria – studies of drapery – were, uniquely, unmounted – a state they are unlikely to be in again for some decades and one which only emphasised their fragility. Viewing these drawings as single sheets, away from the grandeur of a frame, provokes a more intimate relationship with them: Raphael’s mixed media use is foregrounded, his hand and pen lines are clear, a few quick yet confident strokes shape the falling of light upon the cloth. It is all too easy to picture these sheets propped in Raphael’s workroom.

The materiality of these works is also illuminating considering Raphael’s use of the paper. With a small torch, Angelamaria shows us the almost invisible grooves that lie underneath the pen or chalk etchings, nearly imperceptible guide lines that inform the works above them. In one particularly striking drawing, Raphael uses paper which previously had been marked by a compass: turning the sheet over, he utilises the faint lines and centre of the compass mark to form the central focal point and leading lines for a composition of the Resurrection. On one level, this shows Raphael as a workman and pragmatist, reusing leaves from his workshop; on another, it presents his mind as constantly working, stuck by snap inspiration to create art in dialogue with the materials he had already. In one of my favourite works, the group of us gasped as Angelamaria turned a drawing over to reveal not only further sketches of angels on the back, but also lines of Petrarchan poetry, quickly crossed through and reworked at points. Raphael’s pen shows through both his sketching and writing the connection between hand and mind, clearly portraying motion, restlessness, and intense bursts of fluid creativity.

The best was saved for last. In a realisation of a cliché I have always wanted to use, the room was silenced with awe as the final drawing was presented: a detailed study of figures who would later feature in ‘The Transfiguration’. The drawing is finished and precise, with Raphael’s technical skill shining through from the fine crosshatching to the depth of the image. Angelamaria drew our attention to Raphael’s reworking of the hands of one of the figures in order to add emotion to the gesture. This comprises a prime example of what she deems Raphael’s ‘eloquence’ – his ability to tell a story through just a few strokes. This sketch is also one of the most striking we saw because it actually surpasses the painting it was produced as a precursor to in terms of aesthetics. It has been conjectured that as ‘The Transfiguration’ was left incomplete at Raphel’s death, it may have been finished by one of his students and therefore does not display the same detail or intensity – but nonetheless, the emotional and technical dimension of the drawing in its own right shows clearly to me that these sketches were intended for more than practice.

The eye for emotion, detail, and aesthetics encapsulated in these drawings make me firmly side with Angelamaria and others who consider these works as complete, deliberate works of art rather than secondary to Raphael’s other achievements. More than simply preparatory works, then, these drawings are emblematic of Raphael’s mind, his confident technique indicating a corresponding directness of vision. It was a real privilege to have explored these drawings so intimately for an afternoon.

To view Drawings by Raphael and other artists, please contact the Western Art Print Room: waprintroom@ashmus.ox.ac.uk

Further information can be found here http://www.ashmolean.org/departments/westernart/printroom/

Why should we care about casts? Why does the Ashmolean have a gallery dedicated entirely to their display? And what actually is a cast anyway? Allow me to enlighten you. A cast is an exact replica of an ancient Greek or Roman sculpture, made from Plaster-of-Paris or silicone. The Ashmolean Museum has an extensive cast collection of casts, over 1000 in fact, one of the largest collections in any museum. These casts are very important as they are exact replicas of the ancient originals, allowing those who may not get the chance to travel across the world to examine the real sculptures to study and appreciate these ancient artworks. They are very often employed by Classical Archaeology tutors at the University of Oxford for the purpose of teaching students. In addition, these pieces of sculpture are the artistic inspirations that shaped today’s Western art. But not all of the Ashmolean’s casts are available for public viewing. Due to limited space, many are hidden away in the Lower Cast Gallery. A dedicated team of volunteers enables members of the public to access these spectacular pieces.

Adding new Cast into the gallery

On the volunteer-led tours of the Lower Cast Gallery, groups of up to twelve members of the public are taken down to the restricted area of the museum and introduced to three different sculptures. The volunteers, who are enrolled on an extensive training programme before being let loose with the public, talk briefly about the history of and stories behind some key pieces. Some interesting stories illustrated in cast form in the gallery include the birth of the goddess Athena, who supposedly sprang fully formed from the head of her father Zeus, the king of the gods. This story was represented on one of antiquity’s most famous buildings: the Parthenon.

Something that you may not expect to learn about casts is just how fragile they are. One small bump could cause the entire cast to topple over, even the enormous examples such as the cast of the 4th century BC Persian satrap Mausolus located in the Lower Cast Gallery, which stands at over 1m tall. This is due to the process that is used to create the casts. A cast is created by placing a mould directly onto the original ancient sculpture and then the impression left in the mould is used to make the cast. The casts are completely hollow, and often they have to be made in several pieces. These pieces are then fixed together, and if you observe some of the casts in the Ashmolean’s galleries carefully, you can see the join lines where the sculpture is fitted together. The public was recently treated to a view of the behind-the-scenes processes involved with the construction of the casts. In recent months, the Ashmolean set up a new cast in its upper gallery, a sculpture of a centaur (a half-man, half-horse) attacking a Lapith woman. The original sculptures adorned the Temple of Zeus at Olympia, the birthplace of the Olympic Games. However, it is important to remember that the casts that we see today do not appear in the form that the ancients would have recognized them. In antiquity, these sculptures were very brightly coloured, but the paint, made from natural pigments, only survives in isolated cases in the archaeological record. The clean, white casts that we know today would have looked unfinished to an ancient viewer. A reconstruction of how ancient sculptures would have really appeared can be found in the Upper Cast Gallery. A cast of the Prima Porta statue, a representation of the Roman Emperor Augustus, can be found at the top of the steps leading into the Lower Cast Gallery.

If you are interested in attending a tour of the Lower Cast Gallery, these run each Thursday and Saturday at 2pm, meeting at the entrance to the Museum.

The treasures in the Lower Cast Gallery

Over 100 students from the University of Oxford and Oxford Brookes packed the Ashmolean on 8 March 2016 for a special viewing of the current Andy Warhol exhibition, organized by the Museum’s Public Engagement Officer and the Student Creative Board.

The forecourt of the Ashmolean Museum, advertising the Andy Warhol exhibition. Photo © Abbey Ellis 2016

With free entry for all, the event was a real hit. Highlights for the student attendees included the display of Warhol’s short films, including excerpts from ‘Kiss’ and ‘Sleep’, as well as screen tests of socialite Edie Sedgwick, shot in 1965, and of Warhol’s fellow artist Marcel Duchamp. These striking screen tests, played in slow motion at 16 frames per second, vividly capture the varying emotions of the subjects: nerves and uncertainty, resignation and boredom can be read on their faces.

Andy Warhol, Screen Test: Edie Sedgwick (1965), 16mm film, black and white, silent, 4 minutes at 16 frames per second. ©2013 The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh, PA, a museum of Carnegie Institute. All rights reserved. Still courtesy of The Andy Warhol Museum.

Another piece that attracted a great deal of attention was one of Warhol’s especially controversial pieces, ‘Brillo Box’. In 1964, Warhol produced a series of Brillo Boxes, which imitate exactly the familiar soap pad packaging, using screen-printing and ink on wood. The Brillo Boxes have been inspiring debate since their inception, making viewers reevaluate their definition of ‘art’ and its meaning. Some would argue that Warhol’s Brillo Boxes do not qualify as art, perhaps due to their commonplace subject matter, but is art not generally expected to replicate life? This is just one of the challenging debates with which students engaged when touring the exhibition

Find out more about the Andy Warhol Exhibition here http://www.ashmolean.org/exhibitions/andywarhol/events/

There was a great atmosphere in the exhibition space on the night and feedback received about the event has been overwhelmingly positive. If you would like to get involved with the Student Creative Board, and help to put on events such as this, we are currently recruiting new members! Click here (http://blogs.ashmolean.org/talkingobjects/join-us/) to learn more about making an application.

On February 9th, the Student Creative Board welcomed 28 eager participants to the Ashmolean for a clay workshop. Master potter Charlie Clarke from Little Earthquake Pots was on hand to guide students through the process of making a coil pot using air-drying clay.

Charlie demonstrated the process of rolling out clay “sausages” and stacking them one on top of the other to gradually build up the sides of the pot. Students were also shown how to fix the coils together securely using the score and slip technique, how to use tools to smooth the edges of the pot, and how to create different textures.

The participants were then given free reign to get creative, and some very innovative pieces resulted. One student carefully constructed a heart-shaped vessel for holding jewellery, and others turned their clay into elaborate pieces of sculpture.

Classical Archaeology student Jessica Ellis, who attended the class, said: “I had a great time at the clay workshop, it was a really unique opportunity and a chance to do something creative for an afternoon!”

A big thank you goes out to our fabulous instructor, Charlie Clarke, for running a fun and informative session. You can see more of Charlie’s work on her blog: http://littleearthquakepots.tumblr.com/

Thanks also to the Student Creative Board Photographer, Steve Lawson, for his images. Visit Steve’s website here: http://www.srlawson.com/#about

Click to the Student Creative Board Facebook page to see more pictures from the event: https://www.facebook.com/AshmoleanSCB

Who we are looking for:
Enthusiastic undergraduates (1st and 2nd year) and postgraduates from Oxford University and Oxford Brookes.

Must be:
Creative
Digital Savvy
Love museums, art, and archaeology
Organized

Time Commitments:
• Usually there are two or three Student Creative Board meetings per academic term, lasting around an hour and a half each.
• Other than these meetings, Board members can expect to spend an additional 2 / 3 hours a week on Board business, particularly in the run-up to big events such as LiveFriday.

Interested?

Email public.engagement@ashmus.ox.ac.uk

Tour rooms 44 to 46 of the Ashmolean and you will find a wide array of 17th century European art. Look again though, and you may find something missing. Of the 60 or so pictures of the 17th century which have a definite attribution, every one was painted by a man. There are plenty of women depicted, but not a single work by a female artist. This is of course hardly unique to the Ashmolean, and a natural conclusion might be that women simply weren’t creating art in this period. Journey down to Room 5 in the basement however, and you will find a treasure trove of embroidery from the 17th century, the vast majority of it worked by female, largely anonymous, hands.

A number of the pieces, such as “Scenes from the Life of Abraham” and “Cushion: Couple Standing by a Fountain”, are examples of stumpwork, a style of raised embroidery which achieved popularity in 17th century in England. Stumpwork embroidery is commonly found mounted on boxes, mirror frames and other small household goods, and worked using a variety of silk and metal threads, small pieces of appliquéd fabric and beads. The most common scenes depicted are biblical stories, though secular scenes drawn from printed pictorial sources are also found (“The Four Continents”). Typical to stumpwork is a disregard for scale and perspective- an examination of the embroidery on the right door panel of “Scenes from the Life of Abraham” reveals a caterpillar half as large as the nearby figure of Hagar, and apparently floating in mid air towards Hagar’s cloak. This is no indication of a naivety of the embroiderer; rather, it simply arises from a desire to showcase a variety of techniques in a way which would be impossible if the animals were all kept to scale.

The makers of these pieces of embroidery were predominantly young wealthy women, for whom these elaborate embroidered scenes served as the crowning achievement of their juvenile studies in embroidery. Their names are largely lost, which makes “Scenes from the Life of Abraham” all the more exciting, because we have both the name of the embroiderer, and some information about its creation. The maker was one Miss Bluitt, later Mrs Payne, and the box was created while Miss Bluitt was at school in Hackney-a popular site for girls’ schools, on account of its supposedly healthier air- in the years immediately preceding the Plague.

It is easy to imagine that embroidery was yet another means by which young women were confined to the home, their energies directed into time-consuming works displaying their feminine virtue. Certainly to complete an elaborate stumpwork box would have been the work of months, if not years.  The work involved in making the detached buttonhole sections found on “Scenes from the Life of Abraham” alone would have been immense. Embroidery, requiring diligent sedentary work in the domestic sphere, was popularly linked in the pamphlets of 17th century with womanhood. It is no accident that Sarah, the dutiful wife of Abraham, is depicted in a number of stumpwork and canvas work works in the Ashmolean.

We can’t be sure how the young women embroidering these boxes felt about their creations. Some certainly found it frustrating; Lucy Hutchinson, daughter of the lieutenant of the Tower of London, wrote “and for my needle I absolutely hated it.” There are suggestions though that for at least some women, embroidery represented not a repression but rather a means of self-expression.

Rozika Parker, in her excellent and very readable book, “The Subversive Stitch”, points out that embroidery disproportionately shows biblical heroines, often in positions of power. The story of Esther, which is the subject of several pieces in the Ashmolean, shows a woman of bravery assuming a role in the masculine business of politics. The story of Sarah can also be understood not as wifely submission, but, as is given prominence on the left door of “Scenes from the Life of Abraham”, as demonstrating Sarah’s power in persuading Abraham to send away Hagar.

WA1947.191.315 Embroidered box, scenes from the Life of Abraham

Due to the fragility of textiles from the 17th century, pieces from the Ashmolean’s wide collection of stumpwork and canvas work are frequently rotated. Study whichever pieces are on display, and you will find objects which are testament both to a turbulent period in social history and to the creative expression of their makers. Women were creating works of art in the 17th century; it is simply that we all too often ignore embroidery as “women’s work.”

Object details:
WA1947.191.315
Embroidered box, scenes from the Life of Abraham

Description: silk, linen and metal threads, hair, peacock feathers, pearls and wire mounted on a wooden carcass with silver fittings. The left section of Sarah’s dress is a later painted fabric imitating the original tent stitch embroidery; Appliqué, detached needlepoint, cut pile stitches, satin stitch and tent stitch.

Artist
Anonymous, English, possibly Miss Bluitt, later Mrs Payne

Date
c. 1665

More info here
 

(c) The Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology; Supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation

Interior of Turner’s Gallery: the Artist showing his Works – George Jones (1852) by Anna Zanetti

As empty-looking as it may seem, I’ve always found this painting incredibly rich in meanings. It’s entitled Interior of Turner’s Gallery: the Artist showing his works, and was painted by George Jones in 1852. It reproduces the Gallery on Queen Anne Street (West End of London) where Turner kept his unsold works. The room has red walls, a wooden floor, and central skylight coming from the white ceiling. On the walls, a number of paintings are hung, opening onto the gallery like colourful windows. We can even recognise some of Turner’s actual works, such as Dido building Carthage (1815), at the centre of the back wall.

There are two main reasons why I find this picture fascinating. First of all, it acts as a visual document for Turner’s real gallery: together with another oil painting by Jones, this is the only visual record we have. Interestingly, Jones painted it after Turner’s death, from memory, because Turner didn’t want anyone to paint his gallery. In spite of the reliance on visual memory only, Jones managed to capture the atmosphere of the gallery successfully. A letter by Lady Trevelyan, one of Turner’s friends and fans, reads: ‘Among bits of old furniture thick with dust like a place that has been forsaken for years, were those brilliant pictures all glowing with sunshine and colour…’. Indeed, this looks very much like what Jones has painted.

Not only does this painting act as a historical record, but it also bears a metapictorial significance. The Greek preposition ‘meta’ means (among other things) ‘beyond’. With his work, Jones takes us beyond art and makes us reflect on how art is seen and experienced. The characters of the painting, just like us, are looking at paintings themselves. In this way Jones draws our attention to our role as viewers.

In his metapictorial play, Jones also invites us to re-think about Tuner’s works. When we admire them at Tate Britain, they look spectacular for sure, but also relatively realistic. They appear real depictions of real places, and we are tempted to congratulate the artist on his lifelike representations. The reality is that in many cases Turner would paint completely invented scenes – and Jones knew it. According to an anecdote, on the frame of The Bay of Baiae, with Apollo and the Sibyl (1820), painted by Turner after his first trip to Italy, Jones wrote ‘Splendide Mendax’ (Gloriously False): he knew that the work was largely the artist’s invention rather than topographically exact. Turner never removed the inscription, acknowledging that the truth of his art lay not so much in prosaic reality as ‘in his ability to use invention as a means towards discovering deeper understandings of the world’ (Sam Smiles, J.M.W. Turner, 2000). Much like the Latin note on Turner’s work, Interior of Turner’s Gallery confronts us with the relationship between his art and reality. Having several of Turner’s works all in one picture draws our attention to his status as an artist and his visionary creativity, which often went beyond mere reality.

-Anna Zanetti

Object Details:

George Jones (1786 – 1869)

Interior of Turner’s Gallery: the Artist showing his Works

A241; oil on millboard; 14 x 23 cm

Presented by Mrs George Jones, the artist’s widow.; WA1881.348

More details here

Written by Freddy Rendall. Edited by Steve Lawson.

The place? The impressive roof-top restaurant on the top floor of the Ashmolean.

The time? 2 hours before an as-yet unmet deadline.

The reason? The launch of the Ashmolean Talking Objects blog, a new space to foster closer interaction between students at Oxford, Oxford Brookes, and the other Colleges and Universities based in Oxford, and the museum.

It has always amazed me how many of my friends have never visited the Ashmolean. Perhaps it is too close? Too easy? Too free? Behind the lines of tourists frantically snapping its old columns lie some of the most remarkable and interesting collections in the country. Masterful drawings, magnificent musical instruments, some wonderful artefacts; few of which are regularly used or even known about by the wider student body. This is where Talking Objects comes in: through handling sessions run with experts, to sessions with curators on specific objects, the blog empowers you to take any object, picture or artefact that interests you, and run with it (but not literally) – to write an informed, but also light-hearted piece inspired by the object; perhaps relating to much wider themes or ideas. It is a remarkable opportunity to engage with the museum collections regardless, of course.

As we all toasted the success of the new venture with some guilty ‘mid-afternoon booze’, it was clear that this was a project that had real potential. For the first time, it will be simple and easy for students from all disciplines to make use of museum expertise and resources, while the articles that are produced have the chance to gain a real readership. The first object handling session looks to be with the Contemporary China department, while the high number of replies from the initial call has been very encouraging.

——

Call for Submissions

Now, this blog needs you! Do you have a favourite object in the Ashmolean collections? Want to share your thoughts with the world? Here’s how:

We are looking for:

Written pieces of approximately 500 words.

Or

Pieces of art  – be that photographs, poetry, a drawing or painting! Any response to an object accompanied by a short paragraph about why this is meaningful and what inspired the work.

• You choose an object, or a couple of objects, from the museum and discuss their significance.
• Your piece should be light-hearted and engaging, aimed at a student audience. It should not be an academic essay – learned for sure, but not boring!
• You may like to set up a debate about museums and heritage – for example, should museums house objects not from their country of origin?
• Images and basic information (provenance, measurements, museum history) can be provided if necessary.
• We can also offer opportunities to handle objects and chat with a curator about your piece.

Blog URL: http://blogs.ashmolean.org%2