Walk along the River Greta to Brignall Old Church

On 3 April the snowed had melted enough for me to join Michael Rudd on his guided walk along the River Greta to Brignall Old Church. It was a delight to enjoy the sunshine and feel that spring might really be emerging at last in Teesdale. This was one of a series of guided walks that the Museum is running to accompany our exhibition Rokeby: Poetry and Landscape. Michael read extracts from Scott’s epic poem Rokeby transporting us back to 1644 and the adventures and exploits of the characters of Scott’s poem. With the aid of illustrations we explored a number of artworks and viewpoints including the engraving of Brignall after Turner’s watercolour study. Sadly Turner’s watercolour was lost in a fire and Michael read a moving piece written by the famous art critic Ruskin, lamenting its loss.

Guided walk with Michael Rudd

We followed the path down to the edge of the River Greta to marvel at the Scotchman’s Stone capture by John Sell Cotman in his detailed watercolour. This large rock which has fallen from the cliffs above has sat on the river bed for hundreds of years. The base of the rock has been scoured and cleaned by the water and smaller rocks that crash against it whilst the top of it covered with an intricate layer of lichen and mosses. Heading back up the path towards Brignall Old Church we explored the ruins of the church that was dismantled to provide stone for a newer church.  We wondered around the graveyard looking at the old and weathered gravestones before heading on towards the new church at Brignall and heading back to the Morritt Arms.

Brignall Old Church

 

Why not join us on one of our other guided walks or pick up a pack of walking leaflets from the Museum’s shop, pack a picnic and a flask of coffee and undertake your own walking adventure?

 

Emma House, Keeper of Fine Art

Who Built The Bowes Museum?

Museum workmen

It seems a silly question, but it recurs every few months when we receive an enquiry from someone asking about the possible involvement of a relative in the 19^th century.

Pragmatically, we know the Museum was designed by the French architect  Jules Pellechet (1829-1903), but he was not regularly on site in Teesdale and effectively the Museum was built  under the direction of the Newcastle architect, John Edward Watson and the builder, Joseph Kyle, both employed by John Bowes.  However, John Bowes was not a direct employer of the workmen and craftsmen who made the structure, and all we have are a few tantalizing references to individual contracts negotiated for the installation of exhibition cases or specialized masonry work.  For instance, in the County Record Office are bills for letters to JT McCulloch for  ‘Architectural Sculpture’, presumably for the facade carvings, and to GS Arrowsmith in 1882, possibly for the same.  There are also negotiations with two cabinet makers in the same year, presumably for the new museum cabinets. These, however, had been bought in France in 1878 from the exhibition of that year, and Bowes was insistent that they had also been used at the exhibition of 1867 – an early example of ‘ready-made’ and packable furniture for collections.  John Bowes was an effective businessman, with an eye for detail, and he did care about the progress of the project; in January 1873 he sought to employ someone called John Wilks to be in charge of staff on the site, but Mr.Wilks declined, perhaps due the Teesdale weather!

Anyway, members of our dedicated team of archive and library volunteers are working through the archives and other sources to find further references, some of which will feature in a display on the making of the Museum starting in May.

Howard Coutts

Material Remains by Diana Winkfield, the end of the story….

Just over one year on and my exhibition, ‘Material Remains’ in the Fashion and Textile Gallery at The  Bowes Museum is at last installed. Working for three days with the technicians Vin and Mark and Museum curators Joanna and Viv has shown me how my van-load of works of art and artefacts driven up from the South of France has become a reality.

Artwork inspired by Diana’s finds

When I wrote my first blog for this site last year, after my research trip at The Bowes, I was convinced that I would be creating almost abstract work which would emphasise the structure and texture of the cloth of worn garments as I had seen them through a magnifying lens linked to the computer.  However, this was before I began to find more and more concealed and hidden garments and objects in varying states of decay in the course of renovating our farmhouse in rural Auvergne.  These included three dresses that would fit a five year-old child that I found in a hayloft; covered with decades of accumulated debris, these were the inspiration for one of the key pieces of the exhibition.  This large installation made from cast tissue paper projects a flimsy dreamlike after-image of fragments of these ragged and poignant garments.  As I worked on this piece it became a metaphor for my childhood with my two sisters.  Is the piece telling my story or that of unknown children?

Child’s garment found in the renovation of Diana’s French farmstead

Installation of tissue paper fragments of children’s clothing

Still close to my own memories is an installation entitled “Corps de femme” in the same medium which traces the changes in women’s bodies over time.

Corps de femme – the woman’s body changing over time

Complete metal child’s bed discovered when renovating her farmstead

Old boots and shoes were found

This exhibition includes the actual objects which inspired the work.  At one end of the spectrum of preservation are the rusty, broken metal, parts of tools, pots and pans, shards of broken china and leather shoes which were unearthed from this, the hamlet’s rubbish tip, as we followed a digger driver employed to clear 60 years of vegetation.  The work inspired by these discards shows the imprint of imagined narratives and the transience of the frugal lives of the former inhabitants of our rural farmhouse.

Rusty tools unearthed in the hamlet’s rubbish tip

The work inspired by the well-preserved garments which belonged to Empress Eugénie, on show behind glass in the Fashion and Textile Gallery, shows the vanity of possession of these richly decorated garments. I painted  the large piece entitled ‘Empress Eugénie’s wardrobe’ on an old french linen bedsheet which has been left folded since completion to represent her exile from France to England in 1870 when all her fine clothes were packed up and stored in trunks.

‘Empress Eugénie’s wardrobe’ on an old French linen bedsheet

In the pieces inspired by 18^th Century corsets from The Bowes collection there exists the same dichotomy of intent and interpretation: although both are ‘worn, darned, patched and mended’, one is homemade, a practical item to keep out the cold, the other an object of delicate fantasy.

Diana’s art inspired by corset in the collection

Corset possibly worn by Joséphine in a theatrical performance

A rough corset mended and darned belonging to a working class woman in contrast to the delicate and beautiful corset of a lady

Diana’s interpretation of a peasant woman’s rough corset

Clothes and possessions as signifiers of class and status divide is a thread which has evolved for this exhibition; equally the unsung legacies of the ordinary everyday possessions alongside the carefully preserved and conserved objects in museum vitrines.

Diana Winkfield February 14 2013

The Year in Highlights…2012

Wow! What a year for the Museum.  As well as the permanent collections which were admired by thousands of visitors, we have had a year of awe-inspiring temporary exhibitions and displays cleverly curated by Museum staff and visiting curators.

The year began part way through an exhibition of Dutch Landscapes kindly loaned from the Royal Collection by Her Majesty The Queen.  With artists such as Aelbert Cuyp, the 17^th Century Dutch painters focused on the countryside and the sea to convey a pride in their homeland following the Eighty Years War with Spain.  Influences from Italy could be seen in the poetic luminosity and warm tones of the 38 paintings which we had on show until March.

Jan van der Heyden-A country house on the Vliet near Delft ©2011 Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II

 The Fashion & Textile Gallery began the year as host to two beautiful exhibitions.  Paquin Winter 1911 celebrated the centenary of an evening gown created by French fashion designer, Madame Paquin, who was credited as being the first female couturier to have founded fashion houses abroad, and Study, Design & Create: The 98 Lace Group featured stunning works of art by some of the country’s greatest makers of contemporary lace, inspired by the Museum’s own internationally significant Blackbourne Lace Collection.

Evening Gown designed by Madame Paquin

Study, Design, Create: The 98 Lace Group

                                          

At Easter we reflected upon the subject matter of one of our most treasured pieces, El Greco’s moving painting, The Tears of St Peter.  Visitors to the Easter display admired the celebrated work alongside some other formerly unseen works by Spanish artists and marble sculptures from the permanent collections.  Meanwhile, June Crisfield Chapman’s display of wood engravings delighted visitors with their liveliness of line and ability to express rhythm and character with themes of plant forms and characters from literature and the theatre.

El Greco’s The Tear’s of St Peter

    

June Crisfield Chapman’s wood engraving ‘Echinopsis’

In April, the Museum unveiled a programme of Contemporary Art & Fashion.  Six month pass holders were able to return time-and-again to see five contemporary exhibitions spread over the ensuing months.  In the Fashion & Textile Gallery visitors were able to take in the wonders of an intricately created wedding dress by Lucile, Fashion Designer & Titanic Survivor, and enthuse over the exuberant creations of international milliner, Stephen Jones: From Georgiana to Boy George whose captivating hats habitually adorn celebrities and royalty. 

Wedding dress designed by Lucile, Titanic Survivor

Stephen Jones with swan headdress designed for Giles Deacon’s Spring Summer collection

Elsewhere in the Museum they could explore the turbulent relationship of artists Frieda Kahlo & Diego Rivera in a photographic exhibition, Complicidades highlighting their careers during the time of the Mexican Revolution, or marvel at the bronze sculptures of Sensation Generation’s Keith Coventry, Black Bronze White Slaves, featuring dark themes of urban decay and the decline of society.  And for two weeks during the Summer visitors could watch historical costumier, Luca Costigliolo, of BBC2 Victorian and Edwardian Farm fame, recreating a pink dress worn by our founder, Joséphine in her portrait.

Frida Kahlo

Keith Coventry’s Kebab Machine, courtesy of Haunch of Venison Gallery

And whilst the nation was enjoying unrivalled glory in the London 2012 Olympics, we had our own display of local sporting heroes’ memorabilia and a programme of events including inspirational talks by Rebecca Jenkins, Robert Swan OBE and Graham Ratcliffe MBE, a sport-themed family fun day, kite making and cycle maintenance workshops and a film show.  Our Sporting Life was opened by local equestrian and Olympic medal winner, Karen Dixon, and contained medals and trophies, such as the replica of the football World Cup won by West Auckland in 1909/1911, photographs and sports equipment belonging to sportsmen and women from Teesdale and its surrounding area.

Sporting memorabilia as part of Our Sporting Life exhibition

 

After a decidedly damp Summer, with flash floods in Barnard Castle in July leading to a bowling green which looked more like a swimming pool, we were blessed with glorious sunshine and balmy temperatures for the Park Opening on Sunday 2^nd September.  David Bellamy did the honours of opening our park redevelopments by cutting a hand woven vine made by the Friends of The Bowes Museum suspended between two hand-carved totem poles leading to the new children’s playground.  Following Pimms in the grounds, and bird-themed children’s craft activities, visitors were wowed by Ben Potter’s birds of prey on the parterre gardens at the front of the Museum.

David Bellamy opening the redeveloped Museum park

Ben Potter’s Birds of Prey

Autumn began in a flurry of colour, feasting and celebration of all things foodie!  Following an interesting display of local artists’ work promoting Teesdale Open Studios, and an exhibition of varied works by local artist, Linda Birch, illustrator of Bagpuss and Simon and The Witch, came Feast Your Eyes: The Fashion of Food in Art.

Work by Ann Whitfield, part of Teesdale Artist’s Network

Linda Birch’s Bagpuss illustration

Celebrating the representation of food over the past five centuries, Feast your Eyes explored fashions in food and drink throughout Europe from the 16th to the 21st Century.  As well as a recreation of a Victorian Supper from a watercolour kindly loaned by Lord Salisbury of Hatfield House by food historian Ivan Day, and four 3D maquettes created by Philip Haas after Arcimboldo’s Four Seasons, the exhibition was a riot of colour and exuberance with paintings from our own collection as well as loans from the Tate, Goldsmiths Company and the Laing, to name but a few.  To accompany the exhibition, The Bowes Museum Cookbook was published with recipes created by our award-winning Café Bowes Chef, Ben and Rosemary Shrager, of recent I’m a Celebrity fame, opened the exhibition with great gusto.

Feast Your Eyes exhibition – recreation of a Victorian supper

Rosemary Shrager signing copies of The Bowes Museum Cookbook at the preview

A display of Charles Dickens memorabilia, complete with replica house, has run all year in The Streatlam Galleries, celebrating the two hundredth anniversary of Dicken’s birth in February, and Northumbria University’s Fashion Marketing Students have displayed their work celebrating the Titanic Legacy in the Fashion & Textiles Gallery throughout December.

Replica Charles Dickens house kindly loaned by Margaret Watson

Work by Northumbria University’s Fashion Marketing students entitled Titanic Legacy

As if that was not enough to entice visitors, 2012 has seen lots of events, from seasonal outdoor markets, to family fun days and children’s workshops, an antiques fair, gallery talks, daffodil planting, opulent weddings, car rallies, a Mexican Fiesta, a tea tasting, outdoor theatre and numerous concerts. 

Go Wild Family Fun Day in February

Mexican Fiesta in June as part of Vamos! Festival 2012

Santa’s Grotto at the Christmas Market in December

And finally, our beautiful Silver Swan has played, barring a few day’s conservation, every day this year at 2.00pm.  The 240 year old automaton has this year been recognised as featuring in Australian Booker Prize winner, Peter Carey’s The Chemistry of Tears, about a clock expert who is given an automaton to restore while dealing with the loss of her lover.  The heroine is as bewitched by the Silver Swan as visitors are today. 

The Silver Swan plays every day at 2.00pm

Peter Carey’s The Chemistry of Tears

The Bowes Museum would like to thank all those who have visited in 2012.  Wishing you all a very Happy New Year and hope to see you in 2013!

By Alison Nicholson, Digital Communications Officer

Notes:

An article about our Silver Swan appeared recently in The Wall Street Journal, written by freelance writer Richard Holledge, Magic Wrought by a Merlin:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324355904578159601753981708.html

The BBC’s Meet the Author with Peter Carey, describes his storyline and the inclusion of an automaton in The Chemistry of Tears:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-17623056

Cataloguing The Museum’s Archive Material

The Bowes Museum Archive holds thousands of documents relating to John and Joséphine Bowes.  These tell us about life in Paris, buying objects for their collection from dealers in many European countries, decorating their homes in Louveciennes and Paris, involvement with the Théâtre des Variétés, establishing the Museum and their relationships with friends, family and servants in England and France.

As part of a project funded by the National Cataloguing Award Scheme, I am cataloguing the archives, especially the bills and letters, in detail.  This will make it easier for people to find out what a fantastic range of information is available in these documents.  The catalogues will be available online in 2013.

To help me, I have recruited teams of volunteers.  Some transcribe the English letters and bills, as the 19^th century handwriting can be difficult to read.  The transcripts will be word-processed by volunteers, making it easier to search for places, people and subjects.

Seventeen volunteers transcribed 91 letters from the 1850s, mainly from John Bowes to his agent and his solicitor.  They covered estate management, letting moors for shooting, estate personnel, felling timber, coalmining, Hunderthwaite enclosure negotiations and concerns about a proposed railway line.  Two volunteers word-processed 30 letters.

                                  

John Bowes letter transcript

As John and Joséphine lived in France for a large part of the year, many documents are in French.  A group of volunteers is busy translating these documents.  The translations are being word-processed as well.

The translating group are currently working on several series of records, including: plays Joséphine acted in, insurance policies (these include lists of paintings in various locations), bills and letters from Lamer, a dealer, and Baron Gudin, an artist and friend (some of his paintings are in the Picture Gallery)  and John and Joséphine’s purchases at the 1867 Paris International Exhibition.

1867 List of Purchases

1867 Paris (translation)

But the most intriguing item is a handwritten volume – mostly in beautiful calligraphy – of poems and prose ‘offered to Madame Joséphine Bowes by M.J. Owrse, attaché to the War Ministry’.  We know nothing about M.J. Owrse!  Several of the pieces refer to ‘le duc de Malakoff’.  Using the Internet, books in the Museum’s Reference Library and an acrostic in the volume, we identified him as Marshall Pélissier – and there is a portrait of him in the Picture Gallery.

Acrostic

Malakoff Portrait

                                                       

Judith Phillips, Archivist

Conservation of the painting Fruit and Vegetables with Figures in the Background for Feast Your Eyes exhibition

I am a painting conservation student currently studying at Northumbria University. This summer I was give the wonderful opportunity to undertake a two week work placement at The Bowes Museum where I have just begun conserving the painting Fruit and Vegetables with figures in the Background with help from Jon Old, The Bowes Museum’s Conservator.

 

Fruit and Vegetables with Figures in the Background depicts three agricultural workers surrounded by and washing an array of fruit and vegetables. It is a Flemish painting from the Seventeenth Century.  The style and subject matter of the still life with figures was typical of Flemish painting for this time.  The subject matter had also been linked with the popularity of Latin text and sources in Sixteenth Century Netherlands.

Although the artist is unknown the influence of a fellow Flemish painter Pieter Aertsen can be seen in the composition of the work which replicates Aertsen’s Preparing for the Market from the sixteenth century.

My first task was to carry out a condition report on the painting to assess the type of treatment which needed to be carried out.  The painting was examined in normal light where an old, yellowed discoloured varnish could be seen.  Cleaning tests were carried out in the blue sky area and on the white of the man’s apron which revealed the vivid original paint colour underneath.  Across the sky area lighter patches of blue showed where a previous conservator had painted over areas of missing paint.

Other types of light used were raking light and ultraviolet light.  The latter highlighted a varnish, some dark patches of dirt, dark areas where the paint is missing and areas of paint loss which had been restored with over painting.

The painting is due to go on display in the exhibition Feast Your Eyes: The Fashion of Food in Art at The Bowes Museum which starts on 6 October and will later travel onto a National Trust property, Washington Old Hall.

What a treat to conserve the painting.  I hope you also enjoy the process!

Emma Garvey

Conservation Student from Northumbria University

Stage 1

Stage 2 – Cleaning

Day four and the painting is beginning to change dramatically…and what a change! After dusting and cleaning the whole surface with a slightly alkaline chemical solution a filthy brown layer of dirt was taken away. The painting was then ready for varnish removal.

Using a selection of organic solvents a small test was carried out on each of the paint colours to make sure they would not cause any harm. After choosing the most effective and safest solvent a larger area of varnish and old areas of repainting were removed to reveal an array of vivid new colours. It provides just a peek at what is to come, take a look for yourself.

Stage 3 – The Magnificent Cabbage

Towards the end of cleaning most of the varnish has been removed and now its time for the cabbage…and what a cabbage. Its inclusion is said to have a symbolic meaning and was possibly influenced by ancient Greek texts popular in seventeenth century Netherlands. Two different organic solvents were used to clean, one to remove the varnish and one to remove some yellowed staining which revealed beautiful highlights underneath.

Stage 4 – Varnish Testing

Into the second week and after removing all the old varnish and over-paint the work is ready for a fresh coat of varnish. I’m applying the varnish before doing any other restoration work to preserve and protect the original paint layers from any new paint I’m going to retouch with later. The varnish layer also helps wet out the colours to make retouching easier and aids the reversibility of any new paint added.

Stage 5 – Paint Retouching

It is a terrific challenge to retouch the missing paint, caused by old damages – the painting is 400 years old and we expect it to show signs of wear and tear. For ethical reasons and to preserve the integrity of the picture only the areas of damage are going to be painted over. The white areas are filler, applied to areas of missing paint by a previous restorer. The filler on the whole looks to be in good condition so we left it in place. To help get the most accurate colour match the fills first need to be painted a brown colour to match the original under paint layer (called the ground). This ground layer affects the colours painted on top.

We mix up our own paint as it dries quickly and can be easily removed – unlike oil paint which will dry as hard as the original. Its a very satisfactory job seeing the white areas disappear and the painting start to come together again.

Official Park Opening with David Bellamy – Sunday 2 September 1.00 – 3.30

 Written Saturday 8 September, 8.11pm

Well, this time last week I was checking the weather forecast every half an hour and trying to memorise the names and breeds of birds in Ben Potter’s Unusual and Interesting team in order to appear slightly knowledgeable about falconry!  But I had no need to worry as what a glorious day it turned out to be….

The weather was sunny and hot and many friends, family, staff and visitors joined us for an afternoon of celebrations for all the hard work undertaken by Jon Old, Conservation Manager, contractors and funders of the magnificent park redevelopments.

Re-surfaced woodland paths, a natural children’s play area, stylish new signage and enhanced wildlife habitats were the end result of months of hard work, planning and consideration.  The park is a public area open for visitors to enjoy all year round, with a varied and extensive programme of outdoor events meticulously organised by Rosie Bradford, which complements the Museum and its collections and temporary exhibitions.

David Bellamy very valiantly agreed to open the park, and he and his wife, Rosemary were an absolute joy to entertain, with their enthusiasm and warmth towards the project.  Lord Foster introduced Professor Bellamy who did an inspiring speech about conservation and the local natural environment, culminating in a very vigorous cut of a beautiful vine hand-woven by a team of the Friends of the Bowes Museum, artistically led by Susan Kirkbride.  Many journalists from the local Press were present for photographs and interviews, arranged by the Museum’s Press Officer, Sheila Dixon, and as a consequence, a fantastic piece appeared on Look North that evening promoting the park and the Museum to the North East. 

Amy Bainbridge, Education and Learning Co-ordinator, involved lots of families and children in making paper birds in the Education vaults and Ben Parnaby, Café Bowes entertained everyone in his Pimms tent on the grass surrounding the play and picnic area.

The culmination of the afternoon was a stunning display provided by Ben, from Ben Potter’s Birds of Prey Displays from Thirsk, and his six ‘Unusual and Interesting’ birds, who although they had been sat out in the beating sun for several hours, wowed and entertained all audiences on the parterre.  With health and safety at the forefront of my mind at the start of the display, I soon began to relax as I realised Ben was totally in control of the wide range of falcons, vultures and owls taking part.  The long line of people with a ‘birds-eye’ view standing the full length of the balcony looking over the parterre will be a memory forever.  As will the swooping of the falcon in the final display as it circumnavigated the full width and length of the park in front of the Museum.     

It was a fantastic and dramatic ending to what was, I think, a brilliant day and something to remain in the memories of all those who attended.  Thank you to everyone for all your help in making it such a special day.

Alison Nicholson, Marketing Officer