British Museum blog

17 July 2012 • 1:53 pm 3

Installing Shakespeare: staging the world


Becky Allen, Project Curator: Shakespeare

The three-week installation of the British Museum’s major new exhibition Shakespeare: staging the world has just finished, and the Reading Room has been transformed.

With over 190 objects, and 38 lenders, there has been a lot of work to do. One of the most impressive aspects of the experience has been witnessing how many colleagues, both within and outside the Museum, have come together to bring the exhibition to life. It is a real team effort to create an exhibition on this scale, and it calls on skills and experience of all kinds, from conservation specialists to lighting technicians, heavy object handlers to designers.

The exhibition features a huge range of objects, including coins, armour, textiles, sculpture and much more. One of the most exciting, and perhaps surprising, aspects of the show is how many paintings it includes – 21 in total from many different lenders. For me, watching the paintings being hung has been a highlight of the installation. One of my favourites is the enormous 1611 bird’s-eye view of Venice from Eton College. The painting has only travelled twice: first from Venice to Eton, where it was hung in 1636, and then from Eton to the British Museum.

As you can see from the photograph, hanging the painting safely required careful coordination and teamwork. Venice is one of Shakespeare’s most important imagined places, and is often the setting for his brilliant examinations of outsiders in society – Shylock the Jew and Othello, the ‘moor of Venice’, being powerful examples. The painting is populated with figures and really brings the Venice section to life – it’s a great pleasure seeing it each morning.

Museum assistants and specialist art handlers hanging the ‘Bird’s-eye view of Venice’ by Odoardo Fialetti, 1611. (Eton College, Windsor)

Another remarkable painting comes from the Pinacoteca Nazionale in Siena. It is a beautiful portrait of Queen Elizabeth I known as ‘The Sieve Portrait’, by Quentin Metsys the Younger, dated 1583. In the portrait Elizabeth holds a sieve, symbolic of chastity. This association comes originally from the story of the Roman Vestal Virgin Tuccia who proved her own virginity by carrying water in a sieve. It’s a beautiful and striking painting which makes a real statement about the presence and theatricality of Elizabeth, queen at the time Shakespeare moved to London and began to write and act.

Museum assistants from the British Museum hanging ‘The Sieve Portrait’ by Quentyn Metsys the Younger, 1583. (Pinacoteca Nazionale, Siena)

Shakespeare: staging the world is open from 19 July to 25 November 2012.

The exhibition is supported by BP.
Part of the World Shakespeare Festival and London 2012 Festival.

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10 March 2011 • 3:10 pm 2

A year’s placement in Shanghai

Valentina Marabini, British Museum

Over the coming months I will be writing regularly about my experiences in the Painting Conservation Studio at the Shanghai Museum in Shanghai, where for a year I am studying to complete my training in traditional scroll mounting.

Valentina Marabini at work with a colleague in the studio at Shanghai Museum

Since 2003, I have been working in the Department of Conservation and Scientific Research at the British Museum learning, under the guidance of Mrs Qiu Jin Xian, the skills and art of Chinese painting conservation and traditional mounting techniques.

It takes 10 years to acquire the necessary knowledge of these traditions. So in December last year, to undergo the crucial final stage of my training, with the support of the British Museum and the generous sponsorship of the Bei ShanTang JSLee Memorial Foundation I travelled to China and the Painting Conservation Studio of the Shanghai Museum for a year-long secondment.

Shanghai Museum

I’m here to refine my knowledge of traditional conservation and scroll-mounting, working with pictorial artefacts on paper and silk: hanging scrolls, hand scrolls, fan and albums.

There is not much literature to study or many courses to attend in order to specialise in this field, so the only way to learn the skills is by observing the work of conservators and, assisting senior teachers.

The opportunity to spend one year fully immersing myself in the work and life of the Shanghai Museum mounting studio is invaluable in increasing my understanding of the form and function of Chinese art within its historical context.

It will additionally improve my fluency in the Chinese language, but, most importantly, this placement will help me refine the skills needed to care for the Chinese paintings in the British Museum collection.

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This Degas print is an example of the subject matter and technique the artist moved towards in the early 1890s. During this time, Degas produced sketchy prints showing female figures post-bathing. In this print we can see that the ink has been reworked during the printing process – the hair and shoulders show evidence of additional brushstrokes. The backgrounds of these works are much more sketchy and blurred than works he produced earlier in his career, perhaps showing his increased interest in figures. #Degas #print #portrait The intense gaze of this young woman was originally intended to appear in the background of a horse racing scene by Degas, but the painting was never completed. This type of challenging composition is typical of the French artist’s work – he liked to crop the viewpoints of his paintings and sketches to create a different atmosphere. The coolly returned stare reverses the traditional relationship between viewer and subject, and emphasises Degas’ progressive approach to painting. #Degas #painting #sketch #Paris French artist Edgar Degas died #onthisday in 1917. Today we’ll feature works that showcase his radical approach to framing subjects, and his subtle handling of form and tone. This vivid oil sketch from 1876–1877 depicts a repeated motif in Degas’ work – the Parisian ballet. He captured both performances and behind-the-scenes moments in his paintings and sketches, often using vantage points that give a fly-on-the-wall impression to his work. Degas worked rapidly but precisely – mirroring the movements of the dancers he portrayed – and this work is completed in thinned-down oil paint so that his quick brushstrokes could dry quickly. #Degas #sketch #oilpainting #Paris #ballet Our #SunkenCities exhibition is the first at the British Museum on underwater archaeology. 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Follow the link in our bio to find out more about it. Stela commissioned by Nectanebo I (r. 378–362 BC), Thonis-Heracleion, Egypt, 380 BC. On loan from National Museum, Alexandria. Photo: Christoph Gerigk. © Franck Goddio/Hilti Foundation. For centuries nobody suspected that Thonis-Heracleion and Canopus lay beneath the sea. Recorded in ancient writings and Greek mythology, the cities were believed to be lost. After sightings from a plane, a diving survey was organised in 1933 to explore submerged ruins. But it was only from 1996, with the use of innovative techniques and a huge survey covering 42 square miles of the seabed, that underwater archaeologists rediscovered the lost cities. Thonis-Heracleion and Canopus were thriving cities long before the foundation of the great port of Alexandria in 331 BC. Finds suggest that they were still inhabited into the AD 700s. 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Since 1996, underwater investigation using state-of-the-art technology has uncovered spectacular objects, including colossal statues, religious offerings and ancient ships. The finds shed new light on the interaction between ancient Egypt and the Greek world at a crucial period in their history, from the arrival of Greeks in Egypt around 650 BC, to the reign of the Greco-Macedonian Cleopatra VII, the last pharaoh of Egypt (51–30 BC). With only a fraction of these sites explored so far, annual excavations are continuing to uncover the cities’ long-hidden secrets. This 2,000-year-old bust depicts Neilos, the Nile river god. Neilos appealed to Egyptians and Greeks alike – he was the Greek version of Hapy, the Egyptian personification of the annual Nile flood that brought prosperity and fertility to the land. This bust was once mounted into a large decorative shield and adorned a temple in the ancient Egyptian city of Canopus. It was discovered by underwater archaeologists at the base of the wall on which it once hung. Follow the link in our bio to find out more about our unmissable exhibition. Bust of Neilos. Canopus, AD 100–200. On loan from Maritime Museum, Alexandria. Photo: Christoph Gerigk. © Franck Goddio/Hilti Foundation.
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