This dissertation traces the life and afterlife of the short-lived, dismembered (and for several decades, disremembered) collection housed at the East India Company headquarters at Leadenhall Street in London—the India Museum. While much has been written on the amassing of objects and the building of colonial collections, little attention has been paid to the obverse act—dissolution. This study delves into the furor surrounding the India Museum’s fragmentation, examines its recharacterization during politically expedient moments, traces its legacies at the Victoria and Albert Museum and the British Museum, and explores parallels between colonial and contemporary (mis)interpretations of the collection. Centering this dissertation on the afterlife rather than simply the inception of the India Museum reveals that the collection retained its identity as a unified body in the British imagination decades after its dispersal. Questioning at what point a museum ceases to exist and how dissolved collections continue to circulate, this dissertation seeks to challenge conventional understandings of museum histories and proposes a longue durée approach for interpreting and engaging with these narratives. The opening chapter, Expanding the Narrative, offers a new perspective on the institution by foregrounding visual representations and incorporating historically overlooked accounts. This inclusive, image-centric approach aims to contribute a previously unconsidered angle to scholarship on the Museum. The second chapter, “All the Queen’s Horses and All the Queen’s Men”: The Dispersal of the India Museum, examines the critical yet under-theorized moment of the Museum’s dissolution. It applies an analytical lens to the collection’s fragmentation, explores the varying motivations behind the distribution of objects, and contextualizes the dissolution within the broader milieu of nineteenth-century collections in Britain. The third chapter, From “Hugger-Mugger” to “Tangible Monument”: Collective Memory and the India Museum, suggests that the India Museum retained its identity as a distinct entity decades after its absorption into South Kensington. This study demonstrates how the notoriously heterogeneous East India Company collection was reimagined in the early twentieth century as far more comprehensive and stable than it had ever been in its lifetime, and was ultimately reframed as being of critical import to the imperial project. The final chapter, Lingering Legacies: The India Museum Collection Today, examines the present-day manifestations of the dispersed collection, primarily at the Victoria and Albert Museum and the British Museum. It evaluates how effectively these institutions engage with the colonial context of their acquisitions and explores the collection’s framing in physical and digital spaces, including through consideration of discrepancies between gallery narratives and digital representations. The epilogue, The Specter of Empire, reflects on the evolving diplomatic, legal, and ethical positions surrounding the repatriation of Indian antiquities. The charged nature of returning objects from the India Museum collection is discussed in light of the continual reformulations of the colonial past in the former metropole and colony. Against the backdrop of imperial amnesia, rising nationalist sentiment, and the reevaluation of the colonial past in Britain and India, this dissertation highlights the necessity for academically grounded examinations of colonial-era collecting practices. This study suggests that only through a comprehensive understanding of institutional histories and complex object biographies can the circulation, interpretation, and potential restitution of these contested artifacts be effectively navigated in the present day.

This thesis examines the work of antiquary and scholar Joseph Ritson (1752-1803) in publishing significant and influential collections of early English and Scottish literature, including the first collection of medieval romance, by going beyond the biographical approaches to Ritson's work typical of nineteenth- and twentieth-century accounts, incorporating an analysis of Ritson's contributions to specific fields into a study of the context which made his work possible. It makes use of the 'Register of Manuscripts Sent to the Reading Room of the British Museum' to shed new light on Ritson's use of the manuscript collections of the British Museum. The thesis argues that Ritson's early polemic attacks on Thomas Warton, Thomas Percy, and the editors of Shakespeare allowed Ritson to establish his own claims to expertise and authority, built upon the research he had already undertaken in the British Museum and other public and private collections. Through his publications, Ritson experimented with different strategies for organizing, systematizing, interpreting and presenting his research, constructing very different collections for different kinds of texts, and different kinds of readers. A comparison of Ritson's three major collections of songs - A Select Collection of English Songs (1783), Ancient Songs (1790), and Scotish Songs (1794) - demonstrates some of the consequences of his decisions, particularly the distinction made between English and Scottish material. Although Ritson's Robin Hood (1795) is the most frequently reprinted of his collections, and one of the best studied, approaching this work within the immediate context of Ritson's research and other publications, rather than its later reception, offers some explanation for its more idiosyncratic features. Finally, Ritson's Ancient Engleish Metrical Romance's (1802) provides a striking example of Ritson's participation in collaborative networks and the difficulty of finding an audience and a market for editions of early English literature at the beginning of the nineteenth century.

This thesis explores the relationship between the Classical Greek legacy and today’s world by examining the past two hundred years of controversy surrounding Lord Elgin’s removal of the Parthenon Marbles from Athens. Since the Marbles were purchased by the British Museum in 1816, they have become symbols of democratic values and Greek cultural identity. By considering how the Parthenon Marbles are talked about by different people over the years, from art connoisseurs and Romantic poets of the early 19th century to nationalist political activists of the late 20th century, this thesis demonstrates that the fight for the Marbles’ return to Greece is about more than just the sculptures themselves. It is about national heritage and cultural identity.

The purpose of my study is to analyze Assyrian sculptures in the palace of Nimrud from throne room of Aššur-nāṣir-apli northwest palace. My research will be to compare sculptures with a theoretical as well as practical issue in the design of the galleries. Images of supernatural beings would be set up at entrances to palaces and temples. Assyrians called sculptures Lamassū (from written Sumerian references LAM(M) (A) lord of horizons, guardian of the Assyrian Gate. Lamassū are both flanked at the doorways from the throne room of Aššur-nāṣir-apli`s northwest palace. The exact meaning is not clear, but Lamassū can be taken as representing an Assyrian protective divinity. The first method in my analysis combines the need to establish the subjective meaning of objects as objective reality that is their meaning for digital design. My thesis aims to define a specific iconographic theme, centered around sculptures based on similarities in the composition of each scene in the selection of images on monuments in Nimrud. Digitalization projects provide an angle from mergers areas as architecture and archeology through images. With the project historians can use traditional documents and images to reconstruct the past and palaces. The analysis takes as an example of the importance of Digital archeology in understanding the role of artefacts and the role as a function of the specific purpose or activities for which such present or used in museums. We construct meaning as the basis for action, and not only from concrete material, but also from the matrix of symbols that are available from within culture to interpret the substantive conditions. Digital archeology is associated with technology that provides a picture of the physical environment. The digital images show the limit between design of the architectural spaces from the British Museum and the old spaces in Nimrud.

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Science and technology is regularly featured on radio, in newspapers, and on television, but most people only get firsthand exposure to ‘cutting-edge’ technologies in museums and other exhibitions. During this period, the Science Museum was the only permanent national presentation of science and technology. Thus, it is important to acknowledge the Museum’s history and the socio-political framework in which it operated. Understanding the delays in the Museum’s physical development is critical, as is understanding the gradual changes in the Museum’s educational provision, audience, and purpose. While the Museum was the main national exhibition space, the Festival of Britain in 1951 also provided a platform for the presentation of science and technology and was a statement of Britain’s place within the new post-War world. Specifically, within its narrative, the Festival addressed the relationship between the arts and the sciences and the influence of science and technology on daily life. Another example of the presentation of science was the quest for a planetarium in London - a story that involves the Science Museum, entrepreneurs, and Madame Tussauds. Comparing the Museum’s efforts with successful planetarium schemes isolates several of the Museum’s weaknesses - for example, the lack of consistent leadership and the lack of administrative and financial freedom - that are touched on throughout the work. Since most of this history is unknown, this work provides a fundamental basis for understanding the Museum’s current position, for making connections and comparisons that can apply to similar problems at other institutions, and for learning lessons from the struggles that can, in turn, be applied to other institutions.

The aim of this thesis is to identify what actions of change museums have taken to adjust to the ebb and flow of societal norms and values. The empirical evidence is based on three case studies of objects in three museums: the Birka warrior from grave Bj-581 in the Swedish History Museum in Stockholm, the G’psgolox totem pole in the Museum of Ethnography in Stockholm, and the Benin bronzes in the Museum of Ethnography in Stockholm and the British Museum in London. Through observations of objects and exhibitions in combination with interviews with museum professionals and researchers, an overall picture is created that shows traces of regulation but also remaining attributes from older times. Through theories of structuration, authorized heritage discourse, norm critique and postcolonial ideas, we highlight the strong connections between social structures, social relations and authorized governing groups that exist in the process of disentangling. With this thesis, we intend to highlight how the phenomenon of change is portrayed and managed in museums. Museums in the west were foremost established during a time when nationalistic and colonial ideals characterized societal norms and the work that took place within museums. As a result of the preservation and presentation of the national identity, museums were often attributed with a character of identity making. Over time, the world has changed and so have the norms within society. Aspects of ethics and morals have become increasingly incorporated into discussions about power and governance. In line with these changes, museums have also had to change to stay relevant in their time. The museums hold to this day some of the old nationalistic and colonial ideals which they were built upon. The old ideals can be identified within the museums’ exhibitions, and because of this, clashes may occur between older and newer norms and values in the process of change, within which transparency becomes an important key element.  This is a two year master's thesis in Museum and Cultural Heritage Studies.

This thesis provides an overview of the engagement with the material culture of Assyria, unearthed in the Middle East from 1845 onwards by British and French archaeologists. It sets the artistic discovery of Assyria within the visual culture of the period through reference not only to painting but also to illustrated newspapers, books, journals, performances and popular entertainments. The thesis presents a more vigorous, interlinked, and widespread engagement than previous studies have indicated, primarily by providing a comprehensive corpus of artistic responses. The artistic connections between Britain and France were close. Works influenced by Assyria were published, exhibited and reviewed in the contemporary press, on both sides of the English Channel. Some artists, such as Gustave Doré, successfully maintained careers in both London and Paris. It is therefore often meaningless to speak of a wholly ‘French’ or ‘British’ reception, since these responses were coloured by artistic crosscurrents that operated in both directions, a crucial theme to be explored in this dissertation. In Britain, print culture also transported to the regions, away from large metropolitan centres, knowledge of Assyria and Assyrian-inspired art through its appeal to the market for biblical images. Assyria benefited from the explosion in graphical communication. This thesis examines the artistic response to Assyria within a chronological framework. It begins with an overview of the initial period in the 1850s that traces the first British discoveries. Chapter Two explores the different artistic turn Assyria took in the 1860s. Chapter Three deals with the French reception in the second half of the nineteenth century. Chapter Four concludes the British reception up to 1900, and Chapter Five deals with the twentieth century. The thesis contends that far from being a niche subject engaged with a particular group of artists, Assyrian art was a major rediscovery that affected all fields of visual culture in the nineteenth century.

本研究將從法律及管理觀點，分析博物館文物典藏品影像檔案的法律性質，介紹大英博物館及法國羅浮宮的藏品影像授權商品業務的經營經驗，並以國立故宮博物院為例，說明博物館數位文物圖檔授權對於文化創意產業所發展發揮之效益，也透過廠商訪談獲得對於其現行授權業務營運之意見。本研究最後也對於現行典藏機構之藏品影像管理及授權業務提出幾點建議：針對不當使用行為主張法律上權利予以制止、創設特別權利保護資料庫、權利管理電子資訊及防盜拷措施保護條款之準用、積極開發潛在智慧財產，以獲得法律保護、公正、公開、公平地經營藏品影像授權業務、鬆綁或彈性適用法令程序，設計多元且適合的商業模式、平等、互惠、雙贏的合作條件、創造衍生著作、創造附加價值、確認藏品影像品質並因應不同用途進行標準化、及透過網路、集中管理典藏產出之影像檔案等建議。 / Technology of Digitalization has improved the enforcement of National Digital Archives Program. The outcomes of NDAP bridged the conserving authorities and the industries and inspired their commercial interactions. Domestic conserving authorities, which are usually museums or galleries, should promote and manage the outcomes in a positive way for the industries to make use of. This paper explains the legal protection, especially intellectual property laws, of the image of the painting, calligraphy, antique or other historical artwork. The experiences of operating commercial business of the British Museum and the Louvre Museum are introduced. Then, this paper takes National Palace Museum as an example, to investigate its commercial business related to the licensing of artworks images, and to gather the opinions from its cooperating enterprises. In the end, the paper submits several suggestions on legal and managing point of view about the operation of art images to the conserving authorities.

The British understanding of Chinese painting owed much to Laurence Binyon (1869-1943) who enriched the British Museum’s collections of Oriental painting, and for almost forty years, published widely and delivered lectures in Britain and abroad. Binyon’s legacy is to be found in several archival resources scattered in Britain, America, Japan and China. This dissertation is a study of the reception of Chinese painting in early twentieth century Britain, and examines Binyon’s contribution to its appreciation and criticism in the West. By examining the William Anderson collection of Japanese and Chinese paintings (1881), I illuminate Anderson’s way of seeing Chinese pictorial art and his influence on Binyon’s early study of Oriental painting. I argue that the early scroll, The Admonitions of the Court Instructress, which Binyon encountered in 1903, ignited his interest in the study of traditional Chinese painting, yet his conception of Chinese pictorial art was influenced by Japanese and Western expertise. To reveal the British taste and growing interest in Chinese painting around 1910, Binyon’s involvements in major acquisitions and exhibitions of Chinese paintings at the British Museum, including the Sir Aurel Stein collection (1909) and the Frau Olga-Julia Wegener collection (1910), as well as his visits to Western collections of Chinese art in America and Germany, will be investigated. In order to understand the relevance and values of Chinese painting for the development of early twentieth-century British art, I also scrutinize how the principle of “rhythmic vitality” or qiyun shengdong, as well as the Daoist-and Zen-inspired aesthetic ideas were assiduously promoted in Binyon’s writings on Chinese painting, and how Chinese art and thought kindled British modernists to fuse art with life in order to re-vitalize the spirit of modern European art with non-scientific conceptions.