It’s not every day you’re in a room with items as diverse as a stuffed walrus with foot-long tusks, a doll’s house from 1928 and an ornate case for an Egyptian mummy.
These artefacts are just part of a fascinating new exhibition which opens tomorrow at the McManus Art Gallery and Museum.
Dundee Preserves: Caring for the City’s Collections provides a glimpse into activity that often takes place behind closed doors – showing how staff care for, research, store, document and conserve the City’s collections.
Anna Robertson, fine and applied art section leader, explains: “All objects deteriorate over time but with the right procedures, some basic housekeeping and access to specialist expertise it is possible to delay the inevitable and build collections that will last the test of time.”
Exhibits include a 2,000 year old Egyptian cartonnage – the outer casing for a mummy; a small oil painting by Scottish artist William Kidd and a magnificent sturgeon – the largest caught on the River Tay.
“This is obviously in need of some TLC, underlining the importance of a sustained programme of collections care,” Anna points out.
A silver trowel in its presentation box, framed prints and much loved ceramics show signs of deterioration and illustrate the risks that our own treasured family collections are exposed to – from the light damage that fades pictures and photographs, to the moth holes on a favourite jumper to items that are found mouldy with damp.
And this is just the tip of the iceberg. Behind the scenes, thousands more items are kept in store and while there is still much work to do, the deterioration of items through exposure to dirt, vibration and constant handling has been minimised. Anna explains that a lot of the conservation can only be undertaken by specialists: “For example, the skills of a taxidermist are crucial to the display of our vertebrate collection, including a magnificent Canadian walrus, which is evidence of the city’s whaling heritage,” she says.
Several display boxes of moths, taken from a vast collection of thousands, are a fine example of the importance of good collections documentation.
“All items throughout the museum have their own unique number, location and are stored or displayed appropriately,” says Anna.
Today the information about each object is held in both paper and digital files but there can be challenges, particularly with historic collections when the significance of an object can be easily lost.
“Sometimes information was not adequately recorded when it first entered the collection, sometimes the label identifying the work was lost,” Anna explains.
“The detective work to research an object and rediscover or reinstate key information is exciting and rewarding – but items that come into the collection today should not pose these problems to future researchers,” she says.
But no matter how old an item is there is always a contemporary context and a relevance in our time, and Anna hopes that visitors of all ages will engage with this.
“Some of these items haven’t been on display for more than 100 years and we’ve tried to choose objects that showcase the range and diversity of what the McManus holds,” says Anna.
“For us, it’s a whole new way of looking at the collection and will offer visitors a different approach to some of the wonderful treasures in our care,” says Anna.
Dundee Preserves: Caring for the City’s Collections opens tomorrow June 10 and runs throughout 2017.
www.mcmanus.co.uk
