National Museums Liverpool Blog - Thursday, October 02, 2008

Nate Rice and Robert Driver with some of the bird skins that they have prepared during their busy trip to Liverpool

A few weeks I introduced the Philadelphia ornithologists Nate Rice and Robert Driver, who came to World Museum Liverpool to skin and preserve bird specimens both for our collection and the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia.

During a busy few weeks in Liverpool they completed an incredible 150 specimens, all of which were salvage birds kept in frozen storage. Salvage birds are local birds that members of the public have donated to the museum after finding them dead. We had an excess of common local breeds in storage, which were not represented in the Academy of Natural Science's collection. So in return for being given the surplus salvage birds that we didn't need for our collections, Nate and Robert prepared 19 specimens for the World Museum collections.

There are too many bird skins to put into one small blog post, but you can see more in our Flickr slideshow of the Philadelphia ornithologists, including early photos of some of the first bird skins that they worked on pinned out to dry. There are also photos of Nate and Robert on their last day in Liverpool with all of the specimens that they prepared.

Nate would like to collect more European bird specimens, particularly species that were not available this time, and is hoping to return to Liverpool in a year or two. So if you find a bird then World Museum Liverpool would like to hear from you. Please don't bring any in without contacting the museum first. You can email Clem Fisher or Tony Parker in the zoology department to find out if the bird you have found would be of interest and to make arrangements.

The following poem was written in September 2008 by Matthew, aged 20, following a visit to see ‘The Liverpool Cityscape’ by art teachers and inmates from the Learning and Skills section at Thorn Cross Young Offenders Institute in Warrington.

In the video on the gallery Ben Johnson (who painted the cityscape) says he hopes that visitors will put themselves in the picture - populate it with their minds - and Matthew seems to have been inspired by this. We think his poem is really good and Matthew has been kind enough to allow us to share it with other visitors.

What if the painting was in our imagination?

What if boats docked at the train station?

What if the picture was just vegetation?

I wouldn’t be here with a look of fascination.

As far as the eye can see I stare

I am a massive work of art

I was made with pencils, paints and stencils

I am a piece of Ben Johnson’s heart

Further to my earlier Mandy Mandala Superlambanana post, I've now been told that Mandy is such a superstar that she even has her own website! You can check out pics showing how she was made and read more about the artist that created her...

Here's a special report from our curator of port history Ian Murphy, who has just got back from Norway:

"I was lucky enough to visit the Norwegian Maritime Museum (Norsk Sjøfartsmuseum) in Oslo last week to attend the opening of their Båtfolk (Boat People) exhibition, which explores the refugee experiences of Norway's Vietnamese communities. I'd been invited as they had loaned a Vietnamese fishing boat from the Maritime History collection at Merseyside Maritime Museum, which was a centrepiece of the display.

The exhibition is part of Norway's Year of Cultural Diversity which is a national initiative, and has been created using the stories and memories of the Vietnamese Norwegians who - as the exhibition puts it - used "the sea as an escape route" in the 1970s and 80s. The exhibition also looks at other uses of boats by refugees, including a display of a boat that was rowed from Norway to Shetland during World War 2, but the main focus is on the experiences of Vietnam's boat people.

I was shown around the museum by senior curator Peder Figenbaum, which gave me a chance to see their excellent displays which cover traditional Norwegian vessels, the country's fishing industry, marine art and a number of interior ship recreations. I never managed to see the museum's 20 minute panoramic film of Norway's coastline unfortunately, which sounds fairly spectacular. After the opening I then travelled across to visit the Bergen Maritime Museum, which is also hosting an associated boat people exhibition.

The exhibition in Oslo runs until August 2009 and is well worth a visit, as is the rest of the museum. I can also recommend taking the train to visit the exhibition in Bergen; it's an eight hour journey, but the scenery is truly stunning."

Update:

We've just received this photograph of our fishing boat receiving two very important visitors. Ian says:

"The exhibition was opened by Norway's Queen Sonja, which indicates the level of importance attached to the exhibition as part of the year long diversity initiative." 

Khang Ngoc Ngyen, one of the Vietnamese contributors to the exhibition, with Norway's Queen Sonja at the royal opening. Photograph courtesy of H-E Hansen.

A strange beast has found its way into the the World Museum - luckily she seems to be quite docile and friendly! Mandy Mandala Superlambanana has now settled into her new home in the atrium of the museum and has been greeting visitors since last week.

Altogether now: "Oh Mandy, you came and you gave without taking..."

Decorated in a colourful mosaic style, she was designed by artist Patricia Lee for Arts In Regeneration, in association with the communities of Granby, Dingle and Toxteth in Liverpool 8. You may have seen her on show at the bottom of Princes Road, Toxteth, earlier this year before she was bought at the Superlambanana auction and donated to National Museums Liverpool this month.

I'm off to Mandy Moos Milkshake Bar in Grand Central to have an Oreo flavoured milkshake to celebrate.

Me studying the model of Liverpool Castle

Ruined castles have unique atmospheres with oodles of the “if these walls could speak” factor. I have always been attracted to these stone piles which have miraculously survived for centuries, relics of a vanished way of warfare. Liverpool once had a castle which dominated the town but it was swept away nearly 300 years ago.

Liverpool owes its existence to the River Mersey which was created about 8,000 years ago as global warming melted massive ice fields. This blanket of ice as high as St John’s Beacon covered the whole of Merseyside during the Ice Age. About 18,000 years ago the area was covered by an enormous glacier. Over many centuries the movement of ice and water changed the course of an earlier river valley. This also exposed the sandstone ridge upon which Liverpool was later built.

The warming process gradually created the River Mersey as sea levels rose. A small tidal creek on the north bank of the estuary also appeared. Eventually this became known as the Livered, or Muddy, Pool from which Liverpool took its name. This is the most likely explanation for the name of Liverpool, although its origins are lost in the mists of time and there is no documentary proof about the name.

A display in the Magical History Tour exhibition at Merseyside Maritime Museum focuses on the river. A map shows the coastline of the British Isles about 10,000 years ago. Exhibits include part of a prehistoric oak tree from the Weaver Valley in Cheshire, dating from around 2500 BC. In many areas of the North West, prehistoric forests were flooded as the sea rose.

Among the first people to use the river regularly were the Benedictine monks from Birkenhead Priory, the remains of which still stand near the Cammell Laird shipyard. The monks offered food and shelter to travellers and ran the first ferry across the river.

For centuries the fledgling port was dominated by the castle built in 1235 by William Ferrers, Sheriff of Lancaster. Although it was small compared with the great castles in North Wales – being only about 180 feet in length – it was the largest and most important building in Liverpool for nearly 300 years. By 1559 it was described as an “utter ruin” and it was finally demolished in 1720. The exhibition includes this fabulous model of the castle which I am seen admiring.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

More from Rebecca Kench on the ongoing conservation of Gustave Doré's 'The Flower Sellers'. Early work is covered in this post and you can see the original painting in this post.

The reverse of the painting. The dark patch is the wax.

'The Flower Sellers' presents us with several unusual problems, the most obvious one can be seen from looking at the back of the painting.  The back of the canvas has been coated in a thick layer of wax by a previous conservator in the 1950's.  This is not a treatment which we would carry out in this way today, but at the time it was believed that it was the best thing to do for the painting.  The wax was melted and applied to the reverse with an iron in the hope that it would go through the canvas to the paint layer and would help the flaking paint adhere to the canvas.  However the next problem that we face is what should we do with the wax? 
 
When wax is added to a painting in this way it does several things; firstly, it can be reduced but it can never be totally removed from the canvas fibres.  Secondly, it prevents the canvas from responding in the usual way to changes in the environment, and thirdly it means that nothing water based can be used on the painting in the future.  The second of these problems is the most significant as we think that the thickness of the wax will cause problems at some point. The wax-free canvas fibres will expand and contract dependant on how much moisture is in the air whereas the wax-coated areas will be far less responsive to moisture. This will cause a great deal of stress at the borders of the two areas and eventually you will start to see an outline of where the wax is restricting the canvas from moving when you look at the front of the painting.
 
In most of the deep red paint passage in the centre, in the shawl and around the heads of the two right children, there is wrinkling.  Before the wax was ironed into the canvas this must have been sharp and raised and the reason for the wax consolidation campaign.

It’s that time of the month again – you need to get your vote in on The Beat Goes On MySpace page before this month’s poll closes. It’s been great for me listening to so many bands during TBGO MySpace project – some that have featured and many that haven’t. It’s really reminded me about the power of music – how sometimes a tune can just pick you up and carry you away.

Music as a lifeline and an inspiration is one of the main themes of Eric’s The Musical, currently showing at The Everyman and the subject of many rave reviews. Members of the cast  bobbed into the exhibition earlier in the month with former Eric's director Ken Testi. I never went to Eric’s myself. We hear a lot in Liverpool about the legacy of Eric’s – the seeds of talent that it spawned in the form of Echo & The Bunnymen, Holly Johnson, Julian Cope, Pete Wylie, Jayne Casey and others. The repercussions of that little club have reverberated through the decades and created a specific strand of Liverpool’s cultural history.

However, what has always interested me about Eric’s is not what came out of it, but what went in to it. As a venue it played host to many legendary and seminal bands like Joy Division, The Clash, The Ramones, The Sex Pistols and The Damned. I am just reading Vivienne Westwood’s biography and loved this fascinating pic in The Guardian. It features Siouxie Sioux and original punk Jordan (not that one) at Eric’s. Jordan was a key figure in McLaren and Westwood’s circle and of course in The Sex Pistols story. 

Of all of the bands mentioned I think The Damned are given less mainstream recognition than they deserve. They are credited with releasing the ‘first ever’ punk single ‘New Rose’ in October 1976 – just days after Eric’s opened its doors and a month before The Sex Pistols got their act together (well, sort of).

New Rose was an Eric’s favourite and it’s a song which still causes a riot. I recently went to see former Guns and Roses’ Duff McKagan with his band ‘Loaded’  at the Carling Academy and they did a raucous cover with the crowd going absolutely ballistic. Duff who is originally from Seattle is a massive punk fan, which I think is what gave Guns and Roses that gritty edge compared with other LA bands. The song also featured on their ‘Spaghetti Incident’ album.

So the moral of the tale, boys and girls, is that a great tune can go a long way. The rebel factor in punk may be diluted now that nothing’s shocking and The Sex Pistols go on reunion tours, but the have-a-go mentality where anyone can pick up a guitar and be their own band is more evident than ever. That’s why it's a good idea to get out and see some music. Which of today’s bands will be the stuff of tomorrow’s legend?

Vote for you favourite The Beat Goes On MySpace track now.  Revenge Tragedies, Metropolitans, Red Threads, The Vanities, Kings Parade, 28 Costumes, David Tyrrell, Callum McMorran, Buzz Radio, Soft Toy

The completed 'Mimosa' ship model

Here's a sneak preview of a brand new model of the 'Mimosa', which commemorates the ship’s role in taking the first Welsh emigrants from Liverpool to Patagonia, in southern Argentina, in 1865.

The Merseyside Welsh Heritage Society commissioned the model from Tony Fancy of Trade Wind Models in Poole, Dorset, with sponsorship from the Liverpool Culture Company. The model will be officially presented to the Merseyside Maritime Museum by the Merseyside Welsh Heritage Society this weekend, and will go on permanent display in the Emigration gallery soon.

Many people emigrated from Wales in the 19th century to escape poverty, mostly to the United States. However, as the Welsh language and traditions were being neglected and forgotten by these settlers, it was decided to create a Welsh colony. Land for the colony was granted by the Argentinian government in Patagonia.

'Mimosa' was a wooden clipper built in 1853 by Alexander Hall and Sons of Aberdeen and owned by Vining and Killey of Liverpool. On 28 May 1865 Mimosa sailed from Liverpool for Patagonia carrying 160 Welsh emigrants. After a 2 month voyage the settlers landed at Porth Madryn, then trekked 40 miles south to create the first settlement by the Chibut River.

Today there are more than 150,000 people of Welsh descent living in Patagonia. Although Spanish is the main language, Welsh is still spoken there.

Roberta from the National Conservation Centre cleaning the statue base of Ramses II

Here's an update on the refurbishment of one of Wold Museum's most popular galleries from antiquities curator Carolyn Routledge:

"In putting together the new ancient Egypt gallery at World Museum Liverpool we are introducing many new objects, but also bringing back some old friends. One favourite from the old Egypt gallery was a statue base that once held a statue of the famous pharaoh, Ramses II. 

The base was on open display and, for over 30 years, thousands of hands have traced the king's names and the pictures of prisoners carved on its sides. All this touching left the statue base very dirty. In order to show it to its best in the new gallery, our conservators have cleaned it and now the beautiful travertine stone can be seen by all.

The Ramses II statue base will be back on display when the Egypy gallery opens on 5 December this year."

Up the corridor without a paddle - the well packaged kayak leaves the National Conservation Centre

You can't really see it in this photograph but trust me, this photograph shows a c19th century Greenland kayak that belongs to Trinity House in Tyne and Wear - inside a lot of packaging. The kayak is quite rare as boats of this type are very fragile and tend not to survive. It has a wooden framework, with baleen bindings (the filtering material from inside a whale's mouth) and sealskin covering. However, the kayak was extremely dirty and showing signs of water damage when it first arrived at the National Conservation Centre for treatment. Parts of the skin and cockpit hoop were coated with a brittle black resinous coating, which had to be removed. The skin also appeared to have been waterlogged at some point in the past, resulting in severe shrinkage, distortion and blackening on drying.

Conservation of the kayak was a real team effort, with senior organics conservator, Tracey Seddon, working on the skin, while head of engineering and maritime conservation, Jonathan Carr, treated and repaired the internal framework. Once they had finished, furniture conservators Graham Usher and Malcolm Broadbere helped to adapt a special frame to support and protect the kayak on its journey back to the North East.

Its conservation complete, the kayak left yesterday for the journey back to Trinity House. At 5.4 metres long it was not an easy thing to move so Tracey called on the help of several colleagues to carefully guide it down the corridors and out of the building. That's nothing compared to what is to come though, as a first floor window is being removed in order to get the kayak safely back into Trinity House. Once inside it wil be displayed in a newly refurbished room.

Looking pensive at the Biennial!

Hello there. Well today I am going to speak about interpretation and art (bear with me here). There were many difficult decisions taken whilst planning the International Slavery Museum, some on the design of the building, the way we displayed exhibits and indeed the content. It was challenging but at the same time exciting and satisfying to think you can shape such an important project.

I believe that on the whole we made the right decisions when planning the International Slavery Museum. I also agree with people who contact me about the content, and say that there is room for expansion in some areas as well as the need for myself, and my team, to be receptive to new information, and indeed revise information due to new research or new methods of interpretation. Interpretation is big news in the museum world. The forthcoming Museums Association Conference will be laden with it.

Interpretation in museums was something I covered when I studied Archaeological Theory at the University of Liverpool (the word theory often made some of the undergrads recoil in horror) focusing on how communities engaged with their local and national heritage and indeed how they viewed and interpreted the past. As part of my research I spent many hours in the former Transatlantic Slavery Gallery. In fact I sent the odd enquiry about certain exhibits to people who are now my colleagues.

As well as working with Black communities here in the UK I also spent time in the United States focusing on the way African American communities engaged with local archaeological projects. From New York, where I visited the African Burial Ground to Ransom Place in Indianapolis. I also went over to Nevada which meant I spent three days on the California Zephyr. A great way to see the country and meet some characters. There is no substitute from visiting somewhere so that you can experience it for yourself.

So here is the arty bit! My artistic side was awakened this weekend when I went to see some of the installations which are part of the Liverpool Biennial. I live in the city centre and whilst walking past what I thought was a derelict warehouse I saw a carousel, yes, I did say carousel. I like to think of myself as an art aficionado (no laughing please) so I went to take a look inside. I ended up signing a waiver to have a quick ride on it! It was the work of an Argentinean artist which was ‘an artistic question about the constancy of everyday life’. Just what I thought (honest) whilst sitting in an armchair, going round on a carousel in a warehouse. There were a number of other installations too. I was particularly taken by the margarine tubs. I love the idea of art being open to the masses so have a look round the city; you never know what you will stumble across.

Bye for now.

Artist Paul Cousins standing next to his award winning painting 'Night Flight'

As you probably already know, the Best of Merseyside exhibition at the National Conservation Centre features the highlights of this year's open exhibitions held at galleries throughout Merseyside. Having made it through the rigorous selection process for the exhibition, the artists then faced perhaps their toughest critics - the visitors.

Since the exhibition opened visitors have been voting for their favourite artwork. Today Paul Cousins was announced as the winner of the Visitors' choice award for his painting 'Night Flight'. He was presented with a bottle of champagne and some Rennies vouchers in the exhibition.

If Paul looks familiar that may be because he was the man responsible for 'Cloudorama', the Superlambanana that was displayed at the Lady Lever Art Gallery over the summer.

Paul is not the only artist whose fate lies in the hands of our visitors, as you can now vote for your favourite painting in the John Moores 25 exhibition at the Walker Art Gallery, which opened at the weekend.

Liverpool 1350. Image courtesy Liverpool Daily Post and Echo

The Middle Ages may not be one of my favourite periods of history but aspects of life in those far-off times hold a certain fascination. There were battles among warring barons on English soil and if a battle axe or arrow didn’t get you then plague or disease might. Then, as now, there was always fishing.

Liverpool had a fleet of only around 20 ships in the Middle Ages after King John signed the letters patent (charter) establishing the borough in 1207. Voyages were made to Spain and France but most trade was with local ports on the Lancashire coast, Wales and Ireland.

A replica of King John’s charter is on display in the Magical History Tour exhibition at Merseyside Maritime Museum marking Liverpool’s 800th anniversary last year.  It is only a small document but it has huge significance. John wanted Liverpool as an embarkation port for English troops and supplies needed to invade Ireland.

A new town of seven streets was laid out near the Pool, a creek which gave Liverpool its name. Many settlers came from nearby areas such as West Derby to live in the new borough. For some people it was a chance to start a new life free from the control of local lords. Only about 1,000 people lived in Liverpool in 1300 and the population remained that size until the1600s.

On display, and shown here, is a 19th century artist’s impression of Liverpool about 1350 showing the Tower and coastline in its original state before the town developed.

As a port, Liverpool was very much at risk from the spread of disease. An outbreak of the Black Death plague in 1361 wiped out whole families. Their bodies were buried in a mass grave at St Nicholas’s Parish Church which still stands in Chapel Street. The plague struck again in 1558 which wiped out a third of Liverpool’s population.

Fishing was one of early Liverpool’s main industries. Herring, the mainstay of the industry, were caught from small boats between September and November. Exhibits on display include medieval copper alloy barbed fishing hooks, whose design had changed little since the Roman period. Many of these have been found at Meols, on the Wirral, suggesting the importance of fishing to the local economy.There is a lead net sinker used to weight down fishing nets. Lead was readily available from north Wales.

Merseyside Maritime Museum is open seven days a week, admission free. A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

The Fab Four plus friend

Another month, another competition and another prize in our 'name that object' competition. Actually, it's the same prize as last month - a set of Beatles figures - but as so many people entered last time we figured they were popular and are offering another set this month. First clue appears on Monday morning (22nd). If you're keen to get your mitts on the figures you might want to visit the John Moores exhibition that starts this weekend and have a wander around the rest of the gallery while you are there...

I came across this fascinating article on Victorian art dealer Ernst Gambart in the Guardian the other day. Apparently he bought ‘the most expensive painting by a living artist in history’ – 'The Finding of the Saviour in the Temple' by William Holman Hunt. It cost him £5,500 in 1866 which according to the article equates to over £2 million in today’s market.

Lucky for Ernst, his prize purchase was still on-route to him when his house exploded during a fabulous party for which he had hired theatrical gas lights. (Shame the same can’t be said for the poor guest who was killed in the catastrophe). 

‘The Finding of the Saviour in the Temple’ now hangs in Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery, but it will soon be on show in Manchester as part of ‘Holman Hunt & the Pre-Raphaelite Vision’ exhibition. 

The Finding of the Saviour in the Temple, William Holman Hunt

You can see a smaller version of the painting at Sudley House – the former home of another collector, George Holt. He paid 1200 guineas  (£1260) for the study in 1888. It’s an exquisite painting with incredible detail which you can examine using our zoom facility online. There is also an extended piece on the painting as part of our picture of the month series. 

If you are interested in collectors then Sudley House really is a gem and houses some real treasures. And it is the only place you can see the art collection of a Victorian merchant in its original setting. You can also find more paintings by Homan Hunt in the Walker Art Gallery and the Lady Lever Art Gallery.

About 18 months ago John Edmondson used this blog to appeal for living descendents of William Roscoe to get in touch. Plenty of people did contact him and some met up (see John's follow up below). If you'd like to contact John about this project use this contact form.

The eight descendents of the Roscoe family

To mark the publication of Jyll Bradley's book "Mr Roscoe's Garden" on the history of Liverpool's botanic gardens, and the launch of her photographic exhibition "The Botanic Garden" at the Walker Art Gallery, a reunion of William Roscoe's relatives took place on 17 September 2008. Eight descendents of the Roscoe family (the youngest only twelve days old) met at World Museum Liverpool for a chance to inspect Roscoe's cultivated plant collections from the original Liverpool Botanic Garden, after which they visited the City Library where Janet Graham, special collections librarian, showed them some of his botanical drawings in the Oak Room. The visit concluded with lunch at the Athenaeum, founded by William Roscoe in 1797.
 
Plans were discussed for a more extensive reunion of Roscoe family members in 2010, by which time we hope that the contacts established today will have led to a 'joining up' of the various family trees. One family has traced its ancestors back to William Roscoe's grandparents and beyond, to the delight of others who had been unable to progress beyond his father. We look forward to hearing from other Roscoe relatives so that we can update them with these plans.