How does the day of an Explore Volunteer begin? Setting up the trolley!

As already mentioned in the previous article, Explore Volunteers can use three different trolleys; one for each gallery. Every trolley presents several items which visitors can touch and feel. Basically the trolley is like a stall so it is really important to find a nice position for each item on it. The following video shows how usually my colleague Ben and I set the art trolley and which objects we use to engage visitors.

The items on the trolley are divided into two groups; on the left there are some examples of different kinds of art, and on the right there are some activities.

People cannot touch the artworks in the museum so our task as Explore Volunteers is to give visitors the opportunity to touch examples of artwork on the trolley. We have three different kinds of sculptures: a bronze one, much heavier than you would think, a wax one, and two wooden sculptures – there is usually a little wooden mushroom as well – which show the process of making a wooden sculpture; from the natural object to the artwork. Other examples of artwork include a small decorated pottery shard and a square panel painted with acrylic colors. There are also some instruments that an artist usually uses to work: a palette and a mahl stick; used to rest the hand and to make straight lines.

At the art trolley visitors can ask for paper and a pencil to draw. If I may say so the best artwork we receive is from our visitors; they can use our filters to view paintings from a different perspective– I suggest to read the previous article written by Ben about them – and they can play Guess the Artist with us, a funny card game which gives you some clues to guess which artist is on each card.

Some people may think that these trolleys are just for young visitors, but everybody is welcome and they can help provide visitors with a unique experience at the National Museum.

Video music credit: "Cottages" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License

Recently, we’ve been privileged to accept a fabulous new accession into our collection.  It is a set of three silk garments which belonged to Sir Watkin Williams-Wynn, 4th Baronet, who lived between 1749 and 1789.  He owned vast areas of land in Wales, was active in politics and was a great patron of the arts.  You can find out more about him here:

Image of painting of Watkin Williams-Wynn from our 'Collections Online'
Small pastel portrait from the museum's collections

As part of Sir Watkin’s lavish lifestyle came an opulent wardrobe.  The garments we have acquired are a matching set of waistcoat and breeches made from grey silk, woven with silver metal thread, silk embroidery and metal thread trim,

I would like to introduce some of the incredible fan leaves that Amgueddfa Cymru holds in its collection in a two-part blog. Looking at these fan leaves reveals the important relationship between the eighteenth-century print trade, text and painting practice. In this first blog I will expand briefly upon a couple of the painted and printed Welsh and English fans dating to the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries nestled in storage at St Fagans National Museum of History and their material nature.

A number of these fans have paper bases, while a few are created from silk, and several take the screen, brisé (meaning ‘broken’ in French) or cabriolet (a form of transport comprising a two-wheeled carriage, drawn by a horse) form. Numerous fans sport lace sewn sequins (fig. 1), embossed and carved guard sticks. The majority of these specimens have come to Amgueddfa Cymru from Welsh collectors, with a couple seemingly made by talented amateur fan makers. Among these wonderful examples, several printed eighteenth-century fans highlight the complexity of the British print trade during the period in which these fans were produced.

The anonymously made Medley Fan (Untitled) (fig. 2), produced around 1760 (probably in Wales), illustrates the impact different aesthetic media had upon fan design in the eighteenth century. Medley Fan depicts a number of trompe l’oeil images scattered across its surface, including a hand-painted ‘snapshot’ of castle ruins being admired by an aristocratic tourist, which overlaps an engraved image of a peasant girl, set against verse from John Gay’s poem The Fan (1713). Similarly, Map of South Wales Fan (fig. 3), made approximately between 1800 and 1817 (also anonymously) – there is a signature ‘Miss Watkins 1817’ inscribed on the fan – shows rare, and expertly executed, printed imagery. Miss Watkins was the niece of the Reverend David Williams (1738-1816), the Welsh philosopher, and it is likely the fan was made in South Wales. Map of South Wales Fan and Medley Fan (Untitled) suggest the intrinsic link between fan making, decorative arts, painting and the print trade in the 1700s. In the second part of my blog I will go on to explain more about the trades that fan shops dealt in.

Within Amgueddfa Cymru’s botany collections are books of dried plant specimens created by scientists and enthusiasts. Each specimen has been carefully dried and pressed, before being added to the books, sometimes with handwritten or printed notes alongside. The books are of enormous importance both in terms of modern scientific research into climate change and biodiversity, and as a way to see first hand the history of botanical exploration.

You can now look through a catalogue of the 36 books that contain non-flowering plants, fungi, lichens and seaweeds. You can read about a few of the stories surrounding these books below. For more detailed information about each book, please visit the website.

These books show the changes in how we collect, classify and name plants over two centuries from 1800 to present day. An old volume which probably dates from the 19^th century entitled “New Zealand Mosses”, contains more than just mosses. Lichens, algae and even some pressed hydrozoans (tiny marine animals) have been included by the unknown collector who chose to group these superficially similar ‘moss-like’ specimens together. This donation entered the Museum’s collections after its Royal Charter was received and before work had begun on the present Cathays Park building.

While the earliest currently known non-flowering plant specimen in the Museum is a moss collected in 1794 from Gwynedd, the earliest specimen book dates from 1803. This book is Lewis Weston Dillwyn’s personal collection of seaweed and freshwater algae collected between 1803 and 1809. Dillwyn’s specimen book was donated to the Museum in 1938 by the National Library of Wales, and has great importance both scientifically and historically.

Lewis Weston was part of the influential Dillwyn family, and his son John Dillwyn Llewelyn became an early pioneer photographer. He was interested in the natural history that he saw in south Wales where he lived. This is reflected in his scientific research as well as in the pottery designs created while he was owner of Cambrian Pottery. Dillwyn described new species of algae and his specimen book contains type specimens (irreplaceable specimens used in the original description of a species). The book is a personal record of his scientific life, recording places he visited and scientists who sent him specimens. He became a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1804 and later had a plant genus named after him in recognition of his work.

Many of the botanical specimen books in National Museum Cardiff have a fascinating history. Two contain mosses collected by Thomas Drummond on the Second Overland Arctic expedition between 1825 and 1827 to British North America (now Canada). Delving further into the book’s background reveals that the Captain, Sir John Franklin, sent Drummond to the Rocky Mountains with one Native American hunter. After the hunter left him on his own, he survived a severe winter, being mauled by a bear, and starvation. He still managed to collect, preserve and study many new plants of the North American continent. This work was published by Sir W.J. Hooker, who later became the director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.

The more recent books are systematically collected specimens known as ‘exsiccatae’. These are sets of duplicate specimens distributed by scientists to other museums. They help to spread the risk of losing a particularly important set of specimens, and to allow scientists around the world to study them. Lists of their contents are usually published in a journal or online. Much of the Berlin Herbarium and the botanical specimens within it was destroyed in World War 2, however many duplicate specimens from this collection survive in other herbaria around the world. From around the 1900s, exsiccatae changed from being bound books to being loose specimens. This meant museums receiving them could incorporate them into their collections alongside other closely related specimens for easier access and comparison.

Mawrth 2019, Cymerodd disgyblion o Ysgol Uwchradd Willows ran mewn project wedi'i ysbrydoli gan Leonardo ar y cyd ag Amgueddfa Cymru, Prifysgol De Cymru a Ysgol Biowyddoniaeth Prifysgol Caerdydd.

Dechreuodd y disgyblion drwy astudio anatomi gyda Dr Shiby Stephens, Anatomegydd Clinigol ym Mhrifysgol Caerdydd. Dyma nhw'n edrych ar sut yr arweiniodd darluniau anatomi cywir a manwl Leonardo at ddealltwriaeth a gwelliannau meddygol.

Cafodd y disgyblion gyfle wedyn i weld arddangosfa Leonardo da Vinci: Dyn y Darluniau, gan arsylwi'n fanwl, arbrofi â thechnegau a darlunio yn y fan a'r lle. https://amgueddfa.cymru/caerdydd/digwyddiadau/10265/Leonardo-da-Vinci-Dyn-y-Darluniau/?_ga=2.91177693.636861976.1557410099-992676399.1537354296

I gloi, gweithiodd y disgyblion yn agos â Gina Carpenter, Tiwtor Celfyddyd Weledol ym Mhrifysgol De Cymru, i greu darluniau anatomi cywir gan ddefnyddio technegau croeslinellu, creu ffurfiau 3D a chymesuredd corff. Dyma nhw'n edrych ar fwriad da Vinci a chael eu cyflwyno i broses Dylunio Gêm cyn mynd ati i amlinellu dyluniad gêm eu hunain wedi'i hysbrydoli gan ddarluniau anatomi a dyfeisiau da Vinci.

Dan nawdd Sefydliad Esmée Fairbairn.