Greece and Rome at the Fitzwilliam Museum
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Cambridge
Department Name: Fitzwilliam Museum
Abstract
a) Context
In the 1980s university-based scholars of Greek and Roman sculpture and painted pottery took decisive steps away from writing histories of style or seeing art as a bald reflection of life. The Franco-Swiss analysis of Athenian painted pottery, for example, La cité des images (Paris 1984, American trans. 1989), developed an approach which treated imagery as a 'language'. This dissolved the tyranny of style history and revealed pots as engaging in discussion of, rather than simply offering snapshots of, observed social practices, but it did so at the price of almost entirely writing both artists and change over time out of its account. Similar developments took place in the interpretation of Roman sculpture. But neither of these trends has had much obvious impact on museum displays, which still tend to stick more or less exclusively to either a thematic or a chronological approach. Similarly, museum-based research into materials and technologies, and into reconstruction of provenance and context, has had limited input into in more purely academic research directions This project seeks, through collaboration, to harness the best aspects of both approaches by putting people back into the history of art and revealing how craftsmen, patrons, collectors, restorers and curators have shaped the collections that we have today.
The specific, local context of the project is the planned re-display of the Greek and Roman collections of the Fitzwilliam Museum. The project builds on the research interests of the collaborators and the Museum's experience in delivering comparable
b) Aims and objectives
The research can be expressed as a series of questions relating to the people involved in giving the collections the form and appearance they have today. There will be investigations of:
- the activity and context of the original 'producers' and their markets
- the secondary craftsmen who restored many of the works in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries
- the collectors who donated the works to the University
- the work of past curators and university archaeologists who extended the collections and shaped the displays.
The objectives will be to produce a new display securely underpinned by this research, to contribute to the wider research agenda and to communicate the results of the research both to the museum-going public and more widely.
c) Potential applications and benefits
We anticipate adapting the results of the research for multiple uses, from web-pages providing both detailed information about all objects on display and background information on the research questions, to educational programmes for adults and children. The project will also serve to bring curators and university academics more closely together to share their complementary skills and expertise, and may provide a model for future projects both in Cambridge and elsewhere. For the Museum, there will be clear advantages in the extension of the skills and expertise base that the input of university colleagues will bring. For the University, this is an forum in which they can present their work to a broader audience. At the same time the results of the research will contribute to the broader, international research agenda.
In the 1980s university-based scholars of Greek and Roman sculpture and painted pottery took decisive steps away from writing histories of style or seeing art as a bald reflection of life. The Franco-Swiss analysis of Athenian painted pottery, for example, La cité des images (Paris 1984, American trans. 1989), developed an approach which treated imagery as a 'language'. This dissolved the tyranny of style history and revealed pots as engaging in discussion of, rather than simply offering snapshots of, observed social practices, but it did so at the price of almost entirely writing both artists and change over time out of its account. Similar developments took place in the interpretation of Roman sculpture. But neither of these trends has had much obvious impact on museum displays, which still tend to stick more or less exclusively to either a thematic or a chronological approach. Similarly, museum-based research into materials and technologies, and into reconstruction of provenance and context, has had limited input into in more purely academic research directions This project seeks, through collaboration, to harness the best aspects of both approaches by putting people back into the history of art and revealing how craftsmen, patrons, collectors, restorers and curators have shaped the collections that we have today.
The specific, local context of the project is the planned re-display of the Greek and Roman collections of the Fitzwilliam Museum. The project builds on the research interests of the collaborators and the Museum's experience in delivering comparable
b) Aims and objectives
The research can be expressed as a series of questions relating to the people involved in giving the collections the form and appearance they have today. There will be investigations of:
- the activity and context of the original 'producers' and their markets
- the secondary craftsmen who restored many of the works in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries
- the collectors who donated the works to the University
- the work of past curators and university archaeologists who extended the collections and shaped the displays.
The objectives will be to produce a new display securely underpinned by this research, to contribute to the wider research agenda and to communicate the results of the research both to the museum-going public and more widely.
c) Potential applications and benefits
We anticipate adapting the results of the research for multiple uses, from web-pages providing both detailed information about all objects on display and background information on the research questions, to educational programmes for adults and children. The project will also serve to bring curators and university academics more closely together to share their complementary skills and expertise, and may provide a model for future projects both in Cambridge and elsewhere. For the Museum, there will be clear advantages in the extension of the skills and expertise base that the input of university colleagues will bring. For the University, this is an forum in which they can present their work to a broader audience. At the same time the results of the research will contribute to the broader, international research agenda.
| Description | The key achievement of the project is the establishment of the new, permanent exhibition of the Greek and Roman collection at the Fitzwilliam Museum. This has been widely acclaimed not just for its design but for the intelligence, thought and research that underpins it. The display aims both to show off the Museum's collection and to use that collection to communicate to the public some of the ideas or themes that are current in university-based research into the material cultures and social, political and religious practices of the ancient world, and also to contribute to these scholarly debates. For example, we were able to draw attention to the fugitive presence of traces of colour and gilding on a few examples of marble sculpture, thus contributing to the on-going discussion as to how and to what extent this was coloured at different periods. We have emphasised the highly topical role of collectors and collecting in determining the 'shape' and appearance of this collection, so encouraging the public to think about why these particular objects are here at all and what is their recent as well as their ancient history. We have restored ancient craftsmen and consumers to the central relationship with objects from which recent scholarship has tried to obliterate them. And we have opened up and indeed led the way in highlighting the crucial roles conservators play in both determining what objects look like today and in furthering our understanding of ancient technology. One further major innovation of the display is the system of information provision that it utilises, a modifiication of the 'gateway object' system developed elsewhere. Secondly we have carried out a major and innovative programme of 'live' public engagement, offering our university partners the opportunity to share their expertise with members of the public with whom they would not normally engage; honing the communication skills of our research associates and ourselves; and enhancing the pleasure and understanding of at least 600 members of the public. Thirdly we have developed a set of web pages that, pending major structural changes to the Fitzwilliam Museum's website, are ready to go online and thus provide a resource that further underpins the material and information provided in the gallery, with more detailed information on the themes there represented. Fourthly, six of the seven project partners have contributed articles to volume 24.3 of the Journal of the History of Collections, in which they have been joined by four other collaborators. The articles range from detailed reconstruction, through archival research, of the way the Fitzwilliam's antiquities were displayed in the period of 1848 - 1900, to a discussion of the very gradual development of a professionally staffed department of Antiquities after World War II, to case studies of the collections history of individual objects, or the motives and preoccupations of individual collectors. This volume is partially published on-line but will be out as hard copy in the autumn of 2012: it marks a significant landmark in making the Fitzwilliam's Greek and Roman antiquities better known to an international academic audience. Fifthly we have revived what was a slightly flagging relationship between the museum and its local academic community. Working together has revealed the potential for collaboration that we have here and also encouraged more people in the Calssics faculty to consider teaching in the Museum. Our Research Associate Kate Cooper has enthused graduate students through her MPhil 'Museology' courses and encouraged them to see museums like the Fitzwilliam as potential laboratories for their future studies, besides harnessing their enthusiasm by using them as volunteers. |
| Exploitation Route | We are anxious to ensure that as much of the research as possible feeds through to inform the public, through the methods described both above and elsewhere in this report. |
| Sectors | Communities and Social Services/Policy,Creative Economy,Digital/Communication/Information Technologies (including Software),Education,Leisure Activities, including Sports, Recreation and Tourism |
| Description | 1. The project has had a major impact on the way Classical Archaeology is taught in Cambridge. The new gallery has encouraged teachers to base classes in the Museum; our AHRC research associates, especially Catherine Cooper, have provided a bridge between the Museum and the Faculty of Classics. In January - March 2010 Dr Cooper organised and chaired an innovative and highly popular seminar series in the Faculty, in which museum professionals, academics and post-graduate students shared ideas on different aspects of heritage management including but not restricted to museum displays and their use in teaching. In the autumn terms of 2010 and 2011 she co-ordinated and largely taught a popular MPhil course 'The Ancient World on Display: Museums and their antiquities' in which she used her own skills and also her contacts in both the Fitzwilliam and other museums including the British Museum to take students behind the scenes and help them think in depth about the purpose of museums, and the challenges that they face. With other members of the project team she has also given classes each year to MPhil students from Leicester University who have visited to learn about our collections and what we try to do with them. The academic impact has been that we have engaged more academic colleagues and students in thinking about and understanding what museums are for and how they communicate. 2. The new display of Greek and Roman antiquities, along with the associated programme of events and activities, including tarining volunteers to acta s guides, has given museum visitors a greater understanding of some of the questions that are the subject of current academic research. This impact is the achievement of all the partners in the AHRC project. A visitor survey carried out by our AHRC Research Associate Catherine Cooper demonstrated high levels of enjoyment of the new gallery and an appreciation of the topics that we had tried to convey through the new displays (for these see elsewhere in this report). Similarly evaluation of the various activities indicated high levels of appreciation. |
| Sector | Culture/ Heritage/ Museums and Collections |
| Impact Types | Cultural |
| Description | Museum / University Collaboration |
| Organisation | University of Cambridge |
| Department | Faculty of Classics |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | The project has left a lasting legacy in terms of the collaboration between museum and university partners. We continue to investigate opportunities to work together in both teaching and research projects. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Exhibitions, publications, teaching. |
| Impact | See other relevant sections. |
| Start Year | 2011 |
| Description | Open University Partnership |
| Organisation | Open University |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | The new Greece and Rome display was selected by the OU as a suitable place to film a short documentary for the use of students on the subject of ways of looking at and displaying Greek vases. This has the potential to bring our display to the attention of a large number of visitors, both real and virtual, in the years to come. |
| Collaborator Contribution | The OU made a film for teaching purposes as described above. |
| Impact | Short film. |
| Start Year | 2011 |
| Description | Partnership with the New Acropolis Museum, Athens |
| Organisation | New Acropolis Museum |
| Country | Greece |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | The keynote speech at our end of grant conference in September 2011 was delivered by Professor Dimitrios Pandermalis, President of the New Acropolis Museum. This was the follow-up to a highly successful visit made by a group of colleagues from the Acropolis Museum earlier in the summer. We hope to continue this relationship, sharing both our experiences of museum practice and facilitating mutual access to our collections. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Keynote speech delivered by President of the New Acropolis Museum. The Director of the Department of Restoration and two other colleagues are also contributing a paper to our publication on public engagement with ancient material cultures. |
| Impact | Please see above. The output encompasses the disciplines of Classical Archaeology, Public Archaeology and Education. |
| Start Year | 2010 |
| Description | Public engagement |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | In the course of this project, all seven project members have delivered more than 30 talks on aspects of the Fitzwilliam's Greek and Roman antiquities collections to members of the public. This is in addition to a behind-the-scenes day while the gallery was in preparation and to around 15 in-gallery sessions introducing objects or aspects of research. More than 600 members of the public have participated in these events. The events have ranged from formal talks to 'live activities' eg talking about objects ex-case in the gallery or on one occasion lighting replicas of Roman oil lamps as a demonstration of the atmosphere of a typical Roman house; another occasion used the |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2008 |