National Museums Liverpool Blog - Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Yes everyone, it's that time again! The end of the year and time to vote on which exhibition you think was the best from our venues in 2008. Cast your minds back to the dramatic shots of the city from 'Metropolis - capturing modern Liverpool', or maybe your favourite was the 'John Moores 25 Contemporary Painting Prize' exhibition with it's cutting edge contemporary paintings? Here is a selection of some of our exhibitions from 2008 for you to vote on....

If you'd like to find out about our main exhibitions for 2009, then check out the listings page for more details.

If you want to hear an Egyptian Pharaoh telling you about his new fiancé or get the gossip about a runaway Egyptian servant, then check out these videos taken from the new Ancient Egypt gallery. They really bring to life some of the  types of people who would have lived and worked in Egypt at the time. Apparently, the runaway servant in question didn't want to clean his master's smelly clothes anymore, but I won't spoil the story for you!

For more videos including those of an Egyptian priest and a chantress, visit the main Egypt  videos page, where there are also links to transcripts of all the videos.

To view the video subtitles, please select the full-screen option, shown by the four arrows icon. A transcript of this video can be found here.

Hello there

What a few weeks it has been and one with a strong American theme. First of all, as promised, some feedback regards my trip to Atlanta for the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database launch at Emory University . The conference was very interesting indeed and had a number of academics, students and members of the public attend. There was a great deal of interest from people in the International Slavery Museum and how we hoped to use the database. The database is the most extensive in existence and includes slave voyages from various countries and ports. Liverpool is obviously central to the database. I was approached by one member of the public who told me that the name Liverpool was given to many enslaved Africans in Georgia to denote where the ship had originally sailed from. I explained I had not heard of this before or had seen any documents but that I would follow it up on my return.

With Kevin the National Park Service guide outside the Martin Luther King Jr birth home, Atlanta, Georgia.

Before I flew back to the UK I managed to visit a number of institutions and historic sites connected to Martin Luther King Jr, who was born in Atlanta, such as the King Center  and his birth home. Along with a number of other visitors I was shown around this historic site by Kevin - a  National Park Service ranger. I don't think people take pictures of him very often as he was 'made up' as they say here in Liverpool.  It was quite moving to be in the house where such a prominent individual was born and spent his early years. But in a sense what was even more thought-provoking for me were some of his personal items on display at the King Center. Such as a denim jacket, small suitcase, shirts, hat and books which he took on short trips to deliver speeches or attend rallies. It personalised this truly iconic figure. 

The week before I had the pleasure of meeting the Rev Jesse Jackson (a patron of the International Slavery Museum) for the second time whilst he was in Liverpool as part of a lecture tour of the North West. Last time the Reverend was here he only had a brief tour of the museum (followed by a mass of media) but this time he was with a small entourage and spent almost two hours in the museum. Whilst watching a film on Civil Rights and Martin Luther King Jr the Reverend turned to me and remarked that he was stood next to the Reverend King when he was assassinated on the landing of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis in 1968. The site is now the National Civil Rights Museum. 

It reminded me just how much the museum means to people. From internationally recognized individuals like the Reverend Jackson to visitors from around the diaspora and indeed form the local community. Not all museums have the same effect.

Bye for now.  

Regular childhood trips on the Mersey ferries gave me my first taste of the sea even though we didn’t go further than New Brighton. I have never sailed on the high seas apart from in an ocean-going yacht around the Canary Islands - the Isle of Man and Irish ferries are more my style.

The Mersey ferry is perhaps the most famous ferry service in the world – deservedly so because of the dramatic maritime setting of river estuary, open sea and Liverpool waterfront.

The song Ferry ‘cross the Mersey is known all over the globe and is played on the Mersey ferries as they ply their triangular route between Liverpool, Seacombe and Birkenhead.

We have to go back to the 1150s for the start of the Mersey ferries when the monks at Birkenhead Priory would row passengers across the estuary for a small fare. At that time it was a wild and desolate area when the Priory was the biggest building for miles around – there was no castle or tower at Liverpool. This was 50 years before King John granted Liverpool’s charter in 1207. Even then the population never exceeded 500 until the 16th century.

A painting at Merseyside Maritime Museum dates from the era when steam was just beginning to make an impression although sail still held sway in the maritime world. The Rock Ferry (shown here) was painted by leading marine artist Samuel Walters about 1834 (other Walters paintings can be seen on our main site). It gives an insight into the type of craft in use before the advent of steam. Relying upon sails and oars, crossing the Mersey was often unpredictable. The ferry boat in the painting is the James, built in 1826 by Mottershead and Hayes of Liverpool. Walters shows the return trip to Liverpool laden with passengers along with fresh fruit and vegetables from the Wirral.

In the past there were up to 10 ferries between Liverpool and the Wirral – Rock Ferry, Eastham, New Ferry, Tranmere, Birkenhead, Woodside, Egremont, Seacombe, New Brighton and Monks Ferry. There was also a ferry terminal at Garston, Liverpool.

Also on display is a designer’s prototype model of the paddle steamer Alliance of about 1854, showing the dramatic change in ferry boat design in just 30 years. She was later built in Glasgow and served as a ferry on the River Clyde. Unusually, the model has identical stern and bow, each housing a small paddle wheel, with four funnels arranged in a square.

On our main site there are a number of ferry related features including a 1945 photograph of the Royal Daffodil II, a 1959 photograph of the Pier Head and ferry, and an information sheet providing a brief history of the Mersey Ferries.

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).

Rudolf during his Christmas makeover

Since the summer the Superlambanana at the National Conservation Centre has been a Super-lab-banana, complete with a lab coat, goggles and a magnifying glass, ready for action in the working laboratory in the Reveal gallery. This week though he has undergone a complete transformation ready for Christmas, and is now Rudolf the red nosed Superlambanana.

You can see more photos of the transformation, courtesy of Dave Abbott and the learning team at the National Conservation Centre, on our Rudolf the red nosed Superlambanana Flickr page. Dave tells me that just for Christmas Rudolf has found a new home in the window of Café Eros, which should give him a good view as Prancer, Dancer and the rest of the team go past with Santa.

He'll have plenty to do as there are lots of Christmas activities planned over the next few weeks, including carol singing at 10am on Monday, Christmas crafts on the next two Saturdays and Christmas box workshops on Tuesday and Thursday. Full details are on the National Conservation Centre events page.

Rudolf will also be in a great position to try out the brand new menu in Café Eros, so he may put a little weight on over the next few weeks.

Now the Egyptian gallery is open I'll be spending more time in the stores working with the reserve collection. Students and academics from universities use the collection for teaching and research.

One group of students from the University of Liverpool came in this week to study objects from the extensive Roman sculpture collection. The students are reading for masters degrees in the School of Archaeology Classics and Egyptology, which the museum has had links with for over a century.

Apart from examining Roman sculptures they also came to see the replicas we have of Aegean objects. The actual objects are in museums in Greece. Replicas are a good way of becoming familiar with key historical objects that are in foreign museums and is much more instructive than viewing them as photographs in books or behind the glass of showcases. The collection was put together by Professor Bosanquet (1871 - 1935) who taught Greek archaeology at the University of Liverpool from 1906 to 1920 and was the first holder of the Rathbone Chair of Ancient History and Classical Archaeology.

You can see more photos of the Bosanquet teaching collection on our Flickr pages.

We've been following the progress of Kensington Youth Inclusion Project on the blog, from when they first started working on ideas based on the John Moores 25 exhibition, to doing paintings of their own with artist Keiron Finnetty, right up to now, with the final display of their paintings in the gallery at the weekend. The group have even tried their hand at Haiku and rhyming couplet poems inspired by the exhibition! We recorded their readings of these poems and they'll be available to download as a podcast on the website soon.  Here is Learning Officer Lauren Gould's final words on the work of these budding artists:

Be sure to make a trip down to the Walker to see these unique takes on paintings in the John Moores 25 exhibition before the show closes on 4 January 2009; a great way to walk off those extra Christmas calories!

Artist Keiron Finnetty with artists from the Kensington Youth Inclusion Project and Learning Officer Lauren Gould.

The people in the house behind mine have already put up a Santa and sleigh made of flashing lights, blue icicles on every bit of guttering and a large grinning snowman - I shudder to think what the carbon footprint of all that is! But for all this bah-humbug-ness of mine, it is nearly Christmas and at the weekend the Walker got it's decorations up on the tree in style. Press Assistant Alison Cornmell was there to join in the fun:

Frosty reception: Jack gets his superlambanana decoration ready for the tree.

Schools including Belle Vale Catholic Primary School, Our Lady of Assumption Primary School, Blackmoor Park Junior School, Pleasant Street Primary School, Notre Dame Catholic College, Holly Lodge Girls College, West Derby Comprehensive School and Gateacre Comprehensive School all got involved in the festive spirit.

Outside, children and families gathered to watch Jack Frost decorate the tree and inside the Christmas activities continued. Visitors were invited to join in Christmas themed activities and workshops including Christmas storytelling, lantern making and a musical performance. 

Not only has the Walker Art Gallery been taken over by the Christmas spirit, so has the website. Online you can send Christmas e-cards and open the virtual windows on our advent calender.

For some people shoes are just a practical necessity to stop your socks getting wet and tatty, while for others shoes can be more of an obsession. Here's an early Christmas present for anyone in the second category.

There are lots of shoes of all shapes and sizes in the collections at National Museums Liverpool's venues. For the first time ever we've gathered together a selection of them in a brand new shoes online exhibition. The online exhibition features a range of fabulous footwear, from the rather bling Terry de Havilland platforms shown here, to a fragment of a leather heel from a 17th century shipwreck. There's also a lot of publicity material from the archive of local shoe makers and retailers J Collinson & Company, which is now held in the Maritime Archives and Library.

Most of the shoes and shoe-related items in the online exhibition are currently in storage, so the only place to see them all together is on the website. So indulge your inner Carrie Bradshaw and take an online stroll round the collections. Go on, you know you want to.

The Pegasus panel from the Mauretania II

I believe that style and elegance go in and out of fashion and we tend to think people in the past had more poise and élan than now. In my opinion we are currently not in a very stylish age but things are changing. Land transport may still be largely utilitarian but once again lovely ships sail the seas.

Ships often feature beautiful artworks from the majestic figureheads of the sailing era to stunning displays on great liners.

A painting by Norman Wilkinson is perhaps the most famous artwork on a ship. The Approach to Plymouth Harbour hung above the mantelpiece in the First Class smoking room on the Titanic. It has been represented in many films and TV documentaries about the disaster. Thomas Andrews, the Titanic’s designer and a hero of the tragedy, was last seen staring fixedly at the painting, awaiting his fate. Shortly afterwards Titanic plunged beneath the waves, taking Andrews and about 1,500 people to their deaths.

At Merseyside Maritime Museum there are a number of artworks which once graced famous ships.

There is one of a pair of glass panels removed from the officers’ wardroom on the doomed Lusitania, sunk by a German U-boat submarine in 1915.The pretty oval panel has a flower design and subtle tones and shades. It was removed by a joiner in Liverpool because the other one of the pair was cracked.

There are six stunning decorative glass panels from the Mauretania II, built at Cammell Laird’s in 1939. They were rescued when the ship was broken up in 1965. The panels were originally displayed in the Cabin Class (1st Class) restaurant. Each image – based on the signs of the zodiac – represents a specific date in the history of Mauretania II. One is shown here.

There is a large, intricately-painted mural from a lesser-known ship, the Blue Funnel line’s Ixion. John Mansbridge painted the panel in 1951 for the officers’ lounge. When Liverpool Blue Funnel founders Alfred and Philip Holt began naming their ships, they chose names taken from the Odyssey and Iliad.

Homer’s heroes provided inspiration for their own epic adventures as shipowners – their ships were among the most advanced of their time. Other mythical figures are depicted in the mural including Mrs Lawrence Holt, who launched Ixion, as Britannia with her husband as Neptune.

The Cunard Line’s Queen Mary 2 (2004) has many exquisite artworks including massive polished bronze reliefs, murals and tapestries.

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).

Monday will be an exciting day on the National Museums Liverpool website with the launch of two competitions.

Five lucky sports fans and their friends could win the opportunity to do what many footballers can only dream of - that is lift the UEFA Champions League trophy, which is currently on display in the Only a Game? exhibition at World Museum Liverpool. Keep an eye on the exhibition website from 9am on Monday to find out how - but be quick as you'll only have until 12 noon on Wednesday 10 December to enter.

Monday also sees the return of the Name that Object competition, with a new clue unveiled every day next week. This month's prize is a mounted print of the popular 'Liverpool Cityscape' by Ben Johnson and a 2009 desktop calendar featuring a different detail from the painting each month.

"Look what you could have won" - these Ben Johnson goodies could be yours if you're the first person to 'Name that object'...

You've probably heard the expression that 'worse things happen at sea'. Sailor Robert Bruce wanted to make certain that these unspecified terrible things didn't happen to him when he was an engineer the Merchant Navy in the 1940s, so he carried this leather cosh and swichblade knife with him. Apparently he never needed to use them, but - to trot out another cliche - better to be safe than sorry, I suppose. The cosh and knife were donated to the Maritime Museum by his son Gary and are now on display in the Life at Sea gallery.

According to curator of port history, Ian Murphy, sailors were paid at the end of their voyage, sometimes getting several months back pay at once. This made them targets for all sorts of unsavoury types once they were ashore, so sailors felt most at risk in port. However, the tensions created by crews being shut up together for long periods and the presence of weapons on board, meant that many incidents actually happened aboard ship.

As you will have seen from the many posts on this blog, the new Ancient Egypt gallery at the World Museum opened to the public today. Last night some visitors were invited along to the preview opening and were greeted by the Ya Raqs Dance Troupe, who performed traditional Egyptian dances in truly glamorous costumes. The red velvet number was a particular favourite of mine. 

Lady in red:  'Meroe', the lead dancer from the Ya Raqs Dance Troupe.

I spoke to 'Aziza' who said she had been dancing for about three years. The dancers were from Chester and the Wirral - I had no idea that these were such exotic places!

The gallery itself has a good spooky atmosphere now that the lighting is low, in particular the 'Realm of Osiris', which has several mummies in it. I also had a go at one of the interactives and found out what my adopted Egyptian name ('Fire Spirit Goddess' in case you were wondering!) would be in hieroglypics. You can check out more photos from the opening event on our Egyptian gallery Flickr set.

Some of the last Egyptian artefacts to go on display are unwrapped

Have I mentioned recently that the new Ancient Egypt gallery opens tomorrow at World Museum Liverpool? Only a few dozen times! There's a sneaky look at part of the new gallery, along with lots of other photos of the preparations over the last two years, on our Ancient Egypt gallery Flickr page.

If you come to see the new gallery over the next few days you may notice that Mandy the Superlambanana, who usually stands in the atrium at World Museum, isn't there. This is because we need lots of extra space over the opening weekend so we sent our best shepherds (also known as Richard Roberts and Andrew Mountfield from the handling and transport team) to herd her away to the safety of a side room. You can see them settling her into her temporary abode on our Moving stories Flickr page. Mandy will be back out on display from Monday.

Here's the latest photo from the installation of the new Ancient Egypt gallery at World Museum Liverpool. It shows one of the 14 coffins on display in the gallery being installed by the handling team.

This is the coffin of Padiamunnebnesuttawy, who worked in a temple as a ‘Wab-priest of Amun’. His coffin (dated from about 664-525 BC) is decorated with images of different gods and events from the Book of the Dead. At the centre of the coffin you can see an image of Anubis preparing the mummy for the Afterlife.

The new gallery was reviewed on the Night Waves programme on BBC Radio 3 yesterday by Mike Pitts, editor of British Archaeology Magazine. If you missed the programme it's available on the BBC website for one week in their How to make a good Egyptian gallery feature.

David Whitty places an Egyptian artefact in its specially made display stand

Many people will be going to the new Ancient Egypt gallery when it opens on Friday to see the incredible Egyptian artefacts from our collections, many of which haven't been on display for decades. But have you ever looked underneath and behind these priceless objects at the display stands and mounts that are supporting them? It may surprise you to know that these have all been specially custom made by the highly skilled technicians in our technical services studio at the National Conservation Centre.

I popped into the studio earlier this week to see Bill Sillitoe and David Whitty busy preparing the last few display stands for the Ancient Egypt gallery. They produce everything pretty much from scratch, cutting and bending sheets of Perspex to create stands and soldering together the wires to make supports for some of the objects. You can see more photos of them at work in our Making display mounts for the Ancient Egypt gallery Flickr page and I hope that you go to the gallery to admire their handiwork from Friday.