The ambivalence of many prehistorians toward curio collections has meant that, although they recognise some of their shortcomings, they nevertheless use collections as if they had qualities of archaeological assemblages. In this dissertation it is posited and then demonstrated that curio collections are very different entities to archaeological assemblages. In order to use collections in valid constructions of New Zealand�s pre-European past, the processes that led to their formation need to be understood. It is only then that issues of representation can be addressed. In order to better understand the collecting process, a study of the activity of 24 curio collectors who operated in the Murihiku region of southern New Zealand during the period between 1865 and 1975 was undertaken. The study was structured about two key notions: the idea of the �filter� and the idea that tools and ornaments have a �life history� that extends from the time that raw material was selected for the manufacture to the present. The notion of the filter made possible a determination of the effects of particular behaviours on patterns of collector selectivity and the extent and nature of provenance recording; and the extended concept of life history recognised that material culture functions in multiple cultural and chronological contexts-within both indigenous and post-contact spheres. Examination of the collecting process led to the identification of five curio collecting paradigms: curio collecting for the acquisition of social status, curio collecting for financial return, curio collecting as an adjunct to natural history collecting, curio collecting as an adjunct to historical recording, and ethnological or culture-area curio collecting. Filtering processes associated with each paradigm resulted in particular, but not always distinctive, patterns of curio selectivity and styles of provenance recording. A switch in the focus of attention from examination of curio collectng processes generally to the study of the filtering processes that shaped collections from a specific archaeological site-the pre-European Otago Peninsula site of Little Papanui (J44/1)- enabled some evaluation of individuual collection representation. A database recording up to 19 attributes for each of 6282 curios localised to �Little Papanui� in Otago Museum enabled 31 dedicated or �ardent� collectors who operated at the site to be identified. These 31 dedicated collectors were grouped according to the paradigm that best described their collecting behaviour. It was found that the greater proportion of these dedicated collectors (n=12, 39%) had been influenced by the ethnological or culture-area collecting paradigm. These 12 collectors were responsible for recovering a remarkable 5645 curios or nearly ninety-percent (89.86%) of the meta-collection. Because curio collections lack meaningfully recorded stratigraphic provenance, it is the technological and social context in which tools and ornaments functioned that must become the focus of curio collection studies. Appropriate studies of technological and social and context focus upon evaluations of raw material sourcing, evaluations of manufacture technique and assessments of tool and ornament use and reuse (and integrative combinations of these modes of study). These sorts of evaluation require large collections compiled in the least selective manner possible and the collections need to be reliably localised to specific sites. Collections compiled by the ethnological or culture-area collectors have these qualities. Collections compiled within other paradigms lack locality information and were assembled in highly selective manners.

This thesis offers an examination of egg-collecting, which was a very popular pastime in Britain from the Victorian era well into the twentieth century. Collectors, both young and old, would often spend whole days and sometimes longer trips in a wide variety of different habitats, from sea shores to moorlands, wetlands to craggy mountainsides, searching for birds’ nests and the bounty to be found within them. Once collectors had found and taken eggs, they emptied out the contents; hence, they were really eggshell collectors. Some egg collectors claimed that egg-collecting was not just a hobby but a science, going by the name of oology, and seeking to establish oology as a recognised sub-discipline of ornithology, these collectors or oologists established formal institutions such as associations and societies, attended meetings where they exhibited unusual finds, and also contributed to specialist publications dedicated to oology. Egg-collecting was therefore many things at once: a culture of the British countryside, from where many eggs were taken; a culture of natural history, taking on the trappings of a science; and a culture of enthusiasm, providing a consuming passion for many collectors. By the early twentieth century, however, opposing voices were increasingly being raised, by conservation groups and other observers, about the impact that egg-collecting was having on bird populations and on the welfare of individual birds. By mid-century the tide had turned against the collectors, and egg-collecting in Britain was largely outlawed in 1954, with further restrictions imposed in 1981. While many egg collections have been lost or destroyed, some have been donated to museums, including Glasgow Museums (GM), which holds in its collections over 30,000 eggs. As a Collaborative Doctoral Award involving the University of Glasgow and GM, the project outlined in this thesis aims to bring to light and to life these egg collections, the activities of the collectors who originally built them, and the wider world of British egg-collecting. By researching archival material held by Glasgow Museums, published specialist egg-collecting journals and other published sources, as well as the eggs as a material archive, this thesis seeks to recover some of the practices and preoccupations of egg collectors. It also recounts the practical activities carried out during the course of the project at GM, particularly those involving a collection of eggs newly donated to the museum during the course of this project, culminating in a new temporary display of birds’ eggs at Glasgow Museums Resource Centre.

In Edo-Japan (c.1603 – 1868) shunga, sexually explicit prints, paintings and illustrated books, were widely produced and disseminated. However, from the 1850s onwards, shunga was suppressed by the government and it has largely been omitted from art history, excluded from exhibitions and censored in publications. Although changes have taken place, cultural institutions continue to be cautious about what they collect and exhibit, with shunga largely remaining a prohibited subject in Japan. Since the 1970s there has been a gradual increase in the acceptance of shunga outside Japan, as evidenced in the growing number of exhibitions and publications. The initial impetus behind this thesis was: Why and how did shunga become increasingly acceptable in Europe and North America in the twentieth century, whilst conversely becoming unacceptable in post-Edo Japan? I discuss how and why attitudes to shunga in the UK and Japan have changed from the Edo period to the present day, and consider how definitions can affect this. My research examines how shunga has been dealt with in relation to private and institutional collecting and exhibitions. In order to gauge modern responses, the 2013 Shunga: Sex and Pleasure in Japanese Art exhibition at the British Museum is used as an in-depth study – utilising mixed methods and an interdisciplinary approach to analyse curatorial and legal decisions, as well as visitor feedback. To-date there are no official or standardised guidelines for the acquisition, cataloguing, or display of sexually explicit artefacts. It is intended that institutions will benefit from my analysis of the changing perceptions of shunga and of previous shunga collections and exhibitions when dealing with shunga or other sexually explicit items in the future.

Dialogue is a tool that can be used to promote learning experiences amongst audiences in contemporary art museums, in particular due to the potential difficulty of interpreting this type of art. This study argues that when dialogue between the museum and audience promotes balanced opportunities to express ideas and information, the museum can also learn. The museum can share the learning findings about audiences with the rest of the staff members through a professional dialogue, which may impact, creating positive change on future museum practice, in order to facilitate exhibitions, programmes and activities better targeted to audiences. The research explores the concept of learning dialogue using interviews, content analysis, and a theoretical framework related to learning and dialogue in museums. The study also analyses the role of learning and education, and their context in contemporary art museum practice in Mexico, using critical texts and practical evidence from interviews with educators, curators and directors. The thesis investigates, in particular, the case study of the Enlaces programme at the University Museum of Contemporary Art (MuAC). This is a learning activity where the Enlaces participants, who are university students, receive training about the specialist knowledge required to understand contemporary art. The participants aim to create further dialogue with audiences with the purpose of provoking questions, reflection and understanding of MuAC’s contemporary artworks and exhibitions. Findings from the Enlaces participants’ interviews reveal a learning dialogue with audiences, resulting in a model that considers the interaction of three categories of dialogue: visual internal, content and participatory dialogues. Furthermore, the research demonstrates that the interactions between the Enlaces participants and MuAC staff stimulate peer dialogue, professional dialogue and limited dialogue. The analysis of findings results in a model for professional learning dialogue based on the interaction between three key areas: communication, recognition and teamwork. The research proposes an optimal scenario where there is professional and audience learning dialogue taking place, these then feedback to the museum cyclically, allowing audiences to contribute and influence the organisation.

This dissertation examines the early history of the Berliner Phonogramm-Archiv (Berlin Phonogram Archive) and its role in the institutionalization of comparative musicology. The Berliner Phonogramm-Archiv was established in 1900 by psychologist Carl Stumpf in order to collect and preserve the phonographic recordings of non-European musics that would serve as the primary research materials for the then nascent discipline of comparative musicology. I situate the formation of the Phonogramm-Archiv and the emergence of comparative musicology within the historical contexts of the German cultural sciences and colonialism, and argue that both archive and discipline were informed as much by this immediate intellectual and political background as they were by the arrival of sound recording technologies in Germany. I explore how the other cultural sciences, primarily anthropology and ethnology, served as a model for comparative musicology’s methodological and epistemological framework, as well as for the strategies employed for expanding the Phonogramm-Archiv’s collection. As a cultural science, comparative musicology was governed by the tenet of scientific objectivity, and in sound recording, Stumpf found a means with which it was possible to engage with non-European musics objectively. Yet the scientific method also required the comparison of many different examples in order to determine laws through induction, which necessitated the collection of recordings of as many different musics as possible. In this dissertation, I demonstrate how the Phonogramm-Archiv’s mission to amass recordings and the comparative musicological project these recordings facilitated were both enabled by and dependent on the German colonial apparatus.

No description available.

Queen Christina of Sweden (1626-1689)--one of the most celebrated, if controversial, converts of all times--settled in the papal city after her abdication in 1654. Her palace--the Palazzo Riario (today Corsini)--became one of Rome's leading cultural institutions: a site where learned, artistic, and elite culture converged. This study examines Christina's practice of collecting, and argues that her ambition was to create a center for learning and the arts in the Palazzo Riario modeled on the ancient Musaeum of Alexandria. While Christina's importance as a patron of art and learning has long been recognized, this dissertation offers the first comprehensive discussion of Christina's practice of collecting, and the architecture and ambience of her Roman palace. Based on both published and unpublished architectural drawings, inventories, household accounts, and contemporary travel descriptions, this dissertation establishes the contents and the display of Christina's collection, and the architectural plan of the Palazzo Riario. This study examines the intersection between objects and their display, issues of etiquette and decorum, and the social use of architecture in seventeenth-century Rome. It aims to contribute to the history of collecting and early museums, and to the broader field of seventeenth-century culture.

Reducing the time spent by experts on the process of cuneiform fragment reconstruction means that more time can be spent on the translation and interpretation of the information that the cuneiform fragments contain. Modern computers and ancillary technologies such as 3D printing have the power to simplify the process of cuneiform reconstruction, and open up the field of reconstruction to non-experts through the use of virtual fragments and new reconstruction methods. In order for computers to be effective in this context, it is important to understand the current state of available technology, and to understand the behaviours and strategies of individuals attempting to reconstruct cuneiform fragments. This thesis presents the results of experiments to determine the behaviours and actions of participants reconstructing cuneiform tablets in the real and virtual world, and then assesses tools developed specifically to facilitate the virtual reconstruction process. The thesis also explores the contemporary and historical state of relevant technologies. The results of experiments show several interesting behaviours and strategies that participants use when reconstructing cuneiform fragments. The experiments include an analysis of the ratio between rotation and movement that show a significant difference between the actions of successful and unsuccessful participants, and an unexpected behaviour that the majority of participants adopted to work with the largest fragments first. It was also observed that the areas of the virtual workspace used by successful participants was different from the areas used by unsuccessful participants. The work further contributes to the field of reconstruction through the development of appropriate tools that have been experimentally proved to dramatically increase the number of potential joins that an individual is able to make over period of time.

This thesis examines the relationship of George Villiers, First Duke of Buckingham (1592--1628) to the art and aesthetic ideas of his era. As the intimate and all-powerful favourite of two successive kings, James I and Charles 1, Buckingham profoundly influenced the course of English politics, both at home and abroad, and it is as a political force that he is generally viewed. But, as a major patron of many artists and the builder of one of the largest art collections of the time, his influence in the cultural sphere must have been equally significant. Yet no modern study of this aspect of Buckingham's persona exists. / After a review of the general historiographical material on Buckingham as well as his evaluation by art historians over the years, Chapter I presents an analysis of the concept and role of Favourite in social and cultural terms. It goes on to detail Buckingham's personal position within early Stuart court culture, and argues that while this culture formed and defined him, he simultaneously re-formed and redefined it through his choices and actions. / Chapter II examines the dynamics of art patronage and Buckingham's activity as a patron, beginning with his early dealings with the native English painter, William Larkin. The relationship of Buckingham and the young Anthony Van Dyck is discussed, with parlicular attention to the artist's brief visit to England in 1620--21, and it is suggested that Buckingham was instrumental in bringing about this event. The Duke's dealings with the controversial polymath, Balthazar Gerbier, are explored, as are his many-layered connections with the premier painter of the day, Peter Paul Rubens. / In Chapter III the traditions of art collecting, especially in England are discussed, as is Buckingham's reputation as a collector compared to some of his rivals in the field. The extant documentation of his collection is examined, along with the chronology and methodology of its formation. Particular attention is given to gifts of art to Buckingham by King Charles, the Earl of Arundel and others; the art-buying by Buckingham's agents like Balthazar Gerbier; and the incorporation by the Duke into his own inventory of parts of other collections such as that of the Duke of Hamilton and, more importantly, that of Rubens. / Both in the realm of court culture and in the world of art patronage and art collecting, it was Buckingham more than anyone else who supplied the energy and set the fashion. And he continued to do so even after his premature death: the Duke's image remained bright in the memory of King Charles, whose subsequent expanded relationships with Rubens and Van Dyck owe much of their intensity to both artists' previous connections with Buckingham.

No description available.