This post is a followup to

Sir John Scott (1564–1616): Oxford-educated, knighted officer in the queen’s army, member of Parliament, knight of the shire … gardener?

Yes, Sir John Scott, whose portrait came into the NCMA’s collection in 1967, was a man’s man, busy with jousting, dueling, and fighting the Spanish, but apparently his real passion was his garden. He spent much of his fortune on it, even building a bridge for easier access across the Medway (a river inconveniently located in his backyard). Sir John’s 17^th-century garden was no doubt a formal space, bent to the square and formal views of the times, and probably maintained by a small army of servants. The expense almost certainly added to his downfall. After his death much of his monumental manor house, Nettlestead Place, was pulled down, the salvaged building materials sold to pay his debts. Even the bridge was dismantled.

On a recent research trip, I visited the ancestral Scott stomping grounds in the county of Kent, known as the “garden of England.” I found Sir John’s house rebuilt and surrounded by beautiful gardens once again—full of modern art, no less. But like Sir John’s private garden, the present-day Nettlestead Place is a private home, off limits to all except family and guests.

Just a short walk away, though, I discovered a different garden, one that you could say grew from Sir John’s demise. Rock Farm House is a garden lover’s jewel, listed in many garden tour books of England. Not the product of the rich and entitled or the labor of servants, it’s the work of one tireless soul, Sue Corfe, whose husband, Paul, bought this farm some 50 years ago. Over the years they made their living growing hops and fruit but also from Sue’s plant nursery. Sue specialized in ornamental plants that would grow in the chalky alkaline soil of Kent. Today Rock Farm House is a B&B, and the gardens are open to the public during the summer.

In part Sue and her husband were drawn to this property because of the lovely Kent red brick farmhouse, centuries old. The interior walls of white plaster and half timbers seem the embodiment of old England. Set into those ancient walls, just above the huge fireplace, is a large plaque with the Scott coat of arms that clearly dates from the time of Sir John. It was probably salvaged from Sir John’s Nettlestead Place, like much of the rest of the materials used to build the house. So it would seem that Sue Corfe can tell us how Sir John’s garden grows. Her beautiful plants spring from the seeds sown by Sir John some 400 years ago, metaphorically at least.

—Perry Hurt is associate conservator at the NCMA.

With renewed interest in this area of our collection, these paintings are now undergoing an in-depth study so we can understand their history and prepare them for conservation work. Preliminary research has revealed a number of intriguing details.

The paintings, which have not yet been attributed to an artist, appear to date from approximately 1590 to 1620, an interesting period in British history that includes the end of Queen Elizabeth I’s reign, the ascension of King James I, the founding of the first British colonies in North America, and the continuing religious conflicts between Catholics and Protestants. Our research has revealed that Sir John Scott (at center) was a member of Parliament and a member/contributor to the Virginia Company that established Jamestown. Sir John was also implicated in the famous Essex rebellion against Queen Elizabeth, which landed him in the Tower of London; he narrowly escaped the chopping block.

Sir John’s second wife, Lady Catherine Smythe Scott (at left in white), was first married to a mayor of London. She may have been the “strong-willed wife” who was said to have escaped confinement in her own home by using a bodkin to tunnel her way out.

Of particular interest to connoisseurs of fine beverages and incantations would be Reginald Scott (far right). Reginald was a bit of a nonconformist, highly educated, a writer. His first well-known book concerns hops and helped spur that crop’s cultivation in England. Reginald’s second great book was The Discouerie of Witchcraft, wherein the Lewde dealing of Witches and Witchmongers is notablie detected. This book is cited as one of the first to debunk the idea of witchcraft, calling for an end to witch hunts. It was also the first to document sleight of hand and magic tricks. An extremely popular book during Reginald Scott’s lifetime, it also took bravery to write, since most people strongly believed in magic and the need to prosecute practitioners. The book was eventually banned and ordered burned by King James I—the same King James who’s famous for the King James Bible, which was 400 years old last year.

NCMA research on the Scott paintings, made possible by the Jim and Ann Goodnight/Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Endowment, started about two years ago and is expected to continue for several more years. Next month I’ll be traveling to the UK to continue research. The trip will include plenty of meetings with specialists and hours in the archives of art and history museums. It will also include an event that is truly a very odd coincidence, the rededication of the tomb monument for Lady Catherine Smythe Scott in Nettlestead, Kent. The tomb is located in the same church with that of her husband Sir John Scott, the church next to the house where they lived 400 years ago. The rededication service will be attended by the local community as well as historians and Scott family descendents. I’m sure the Scott family stories will be flowing, hopefully along with some of that hoppy magical brew that the Scotts helped bring about. Maybe we will even get to the bottom of this bodkin escape tale.

The Duchess, née Barbara Villiers (1640–1709), is possibly one of the best-known mistresses in history. She became the very public favorite of English King Charles II in 1660, even though she was married to Roger Palmer at the time. The duchess was famous for her beauty: “Tall, voluptuous, with masses of auburn hair, slanting, heavy-lidded blue-violet eyes, alabaster skin, and a sensuous, sulky mouth,” as described by Antonia Fraser in her book King Charles II. The duchess was known for her charm as well as her extravagance, foul temper, and promiscuity. For 13 years her influence over the king waxed and waned in the quagmire of court intrigue, earning her the nickname “the uncrowned queen” but also “the curse of the nation.”

Before treatment the painting was very dark and yellow-brown in appearance. The curtain in the background at right was so dark it could barely be seen, and the garment at bottom left was an odd, unsightly green. Conservation work focused on removing several layers of very old varnish, grime, and previous restoration. Careful cleaning revealed that the curtain area at left was damaged and had been largely repainted in a past restoration. The green garment at lower left was also buried in old restoration paint, but cleaning uncovered the original light blue painted garment, which proved almost damage free. This depiction of light blue silk is relatively common in paintings of this period and, in this case, was probably achieved using a pigment called smalt. (Exact identification of the pigment requires analysis that was beyond the scope of this project). A product of the glass industry, smalt made beautiful transparent blues, but it was unstable in a paint film and frequently turned brown over time. In this case it is well preserved. Smalt fell out of use by painters when better-performing blue pigments came along.

Now that the duchess has been restored to her former beauty, she is ready for her close up. She’s now on view in West Building.

Image:

Sir Peter Lely and Studio, Barbara Villiers, later Duchess of Cleveland, circa 1662–1665, oil on canvas, 50 x 40 in., Gift of the Van Diemen-Lilienfeld Galleries and the Dalzell Hatfield Galleries in memory of William R. Valentiner

As part of his study of Anatsui’s work, Perry created a small model of a metal wall sculpture using similar materials (metal wine bottle caps and 24-gauge wire). He cut and flattened the caps into strips about 2 inches long by ¾ inch wide, then poked holes in the strips and joined them with the copper wire.

This not only gave him insight into the artist’s processes but also provides a useful educational tool that can be handled by the public (unlike Anatsui’s work or any other art in the Museum). Examining Perry’s creation, one can experience firsthand the skill and ingenuity behind the construction—as well as its fragility.

The piece has sharp edges that can’t be removed or filed down, as the metal bottle caps are too thin. Perry has found that sharp edges are part of the handling experience of a real El Anatsui work, too; gloves can be shredded, clothing gets snagged, and the wall sculpture can snag on itself when being moved.

Each section of the finished model fits into a 1-gallon plastic zipper bag to protect the “viewer” from the sharp edges and to permit handling of the work in educational settings.

The exhibition El Anatsui: When I Last Wrote to You about Africa is on view in East Building through July 29; the Museum’s own El Anatsui work, Lines That Link Humanity, is part of the permanent collection in West Building. For more on Perry’s work with El Anatsui, check out the interview on nc artblog (Part I and Part II).

Installing Stressed World from The North Carolina Museum of Art on Vimeo.

The installation of the largest wall sculpture in the exhibition is a delicate affair. The process was captured over three days.

ncartmuseum.org/elanatsui

Every year on or around May 18, museums around the world celebrate International Museum Day, a day that focuses on museums and the role they play in our ever-changing society. This year’s International Museum Day theme is “Museum and Memory,” which reflects beautifully the role of museums. The NCMA’s collection—like that of every museum—preserves the memory of cultures and people, past or present.  By visiting the permanent collection galleries of West Building, you can discover these cultures and eras, and create your own memories as well.

The NCMA is celebrating International Museum Day on Wednesday, May 18, with free admission to 30 Americans, a superb exhibition presenting the works of contemporary African American artists, and a free screening of Purvis of Overtown, a documentary on contemporary artist Purvis Young, an icon of Black culture whose work is featured in 30 Americans. East Building will be open until 8 pm for those attending the screening and visiting 30 Americans.

This year during International Museum Day a special focus is also placed on Africa and highlighting its important cultural contributions to the world. Come celebrate International Museum Day and African heritage at the NCMA on May 18! Visit the African collection in West Building until 5 pm (and as the NCMA’s unofficial spokesperson for IMD, I can make a shameless plug for my own galleries—Egypt is in Africa, so take a look at the ancient Egyptian galleries as well and marvel at the long history and cultural diversity of this fascinating continent). 

Happy International Museum Day to all!

In honor of this year’s theme “Museum and Memory,” we want to hear about your most  memorable NCMA experience. Share a story or a photo on our Facebook wall by May 18 and we’ll randomly select one person to win an NCMA prize pack.

For the first time ever at the North Carolina Museum of Art, all four volumes of John James Audubon’s The Birds of America are currently on view.

Believe me, this has been a long time coming. From the transfer of the portfolios from the State Library to the Museum in 1974 to the five-year conservation and restoration program of 2002–2007, this migration has been worthy of a National Geographic documentary.

In the past the Museum has had the ability to show only one volume at a time, in a single case, because of a variety of physical, spatial, and conservation–related restrictions.

The Restrictions

1. Size of the books: really big. Each page is 40 by 26 inches. Not for nothing are they known as the Double Elephant Folios.

2. Size of the case: again, really big—73 inches long x 53 inches deep x 40 inches tall, including the protective glass hood.

3. Limited viewing. Only one page in one volume could be displayed at a time because of light restrictions.

4. Turning the pages—once each quarter—required:

• 8 people from 3 departments.
• 8 suction cups used by 4 strong people to remove the protective glass hood.
• Constant repair of the protective glass hood due to seam breakage during each opening.
• Extreme difficulty in closing the case due to a less-than-precise closure mechanism.

5. Size of the room: tiny. Less than 100 square feet—and it was really just a passageway between contemporary art galleries. In sum, there was no real gallery for the birds to roost in.

The Solutions

1. A dedicated gallery! The new 700-square-foot space allows all four volumes to be shown simultaneously. There are new in-gallery education panels and a reading area, and we can control light levels because the space is not a passageway.

2. New cases—four of them!—one for each volume. They’re each the same size as the old Audubon case, but with greatly improved construction. Pneumatic lifts allow art handlers to open the glass hoods with the greatest of ease (no more suction cups). Pullout decks give greater physical access to the books for safe page turning. And the cases close with a one-handed gentle mechanism and a self-locking system.

That’s right. Thanks to modern technology, what used to take eight people now takes only two or three. Our new cases, made by Glasbau Hahn of Germany, are the crème de la crème of museum casework and a capital investment that will last a lifetime. Unlock with a key, lift open the hood, pull out the deck, turn the page, add a new label, and close the case. It’s that easy. It now takes more time to coordinate the three people with a key than to get access to the book. Our work is more efficient, and the Museum can show more birds than ever before.

One word of caution for visitors to Audubon: you’re being watched. The new gallery is under surveillance by a few feathered friends on loan from the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, so be warned—unless you foresee an Alfred Hitchcock moment in your future, please don’t touch the birds.

Not only did we create an Ethafoam mummy to support the various pieces of  the Gilded Mummy Covering, but we also had to make a special mount for the mummy so it could stand upright. This mount for the mount—Golden Boy’s guts, if you will—is hidden inside the Ethafoam body and was made right here in the carpentry shop (just like his mummy body was made in the conservation lab).

When Stacey made the mummy form, she carved a long, narrow space in the middle of the body, from Golden Boy’s feet to his chest. A long, threaded rod (7/8-inch diameter) was inserted vertically in the body (think of it as Golden Boy’s spine) and secured underneath the base. This keeps the mummy upright and stable. However, this was not enough. A 5-by-5-inch cavity was created in his chest so that the rod could be attached to a brass plate with a flange that had also been inserted in Golden Boy’s body. From this flange, two thin brass threaded rods (3/8-inch diameter) were screwed horizontally to the backboard of the case. You can imagine those as Golden Boy’s innards. Or maybe his heart.

The hole in Golden Boy’s chest is cleverly hidden by his gold pectoral. When we installed the Gilded Mummy Covering, we simply removed the pectoral and, just like a character in a Frankenstein movie, I stuck my hands in there and screwed the rods attached to the flange into the backboard. It was a delicate operation, almost like heart surgery, but it was all for our boy’s well-being.

One sculpture in the Park that has always inspired my contemplation is Steven Siegel’s To see Jennie smile. This 24-foot-tall sculpture incorporated over 20,000 pounds of News & Observer newspapers. Siegel and a team of 50 volunteers spent two weeks installing the work in 2006. Community involvement is an important aspect of the artist’s work. as reflected by the title of the piece. In an interview with the artist, Siegel tells his story of a volunteer inspiring his naming of the work.
Download audio file (siegel.mp3)
Using specific materials to emphasize the ephemeral nature of our landscapes, Siegel always inspires discussion about environment and art. Visitors have often asked whether the newspapers are detrimental to the environment, as they are expected to decompose in the landscape during the piece’s lifetime. (The answer is no: the newspaper uses vegetable-based inks, and the glossy inserts were removed before installation.) I have found myself staring at the top of the sculpture among the trees and wondering if the local birds have taken part in the work as they construct their nests.

In June 2009, a conversation began among staff members regarding To see Jennie smile. We began to notice the sculpture leaning slightly to the right. Staff members of the Planning and Design, Conservation, and Curatorial departments decided to monitor the changes in the sculpture over the next six months. We photographed Jennie at various stages of deterioration and finally made the decision to remove the piece. On May 20 the NCMA staff said our goodbyes to a work of art that has delighted us, and the public. for four years.

The deinstallation took just a couple of hours and was pretty painless. After wrapping the entire piece in black landscaping fabric, the crew was able to pull the sculpture to the ground with a backhoe. The discarded newspapers and wood infrastructure were hauled off in a large truck. The staff, visitors, and the inhabitants of the Park will surely miss Jennie—especially the 3-foot-long black snake that had taken up residence inside it.

I revisited the sculpture’s footprint last week in search of remnants of the past. I performed my own little archaeological dig at the base of a tree and found small bits of Jennie. The ongoing presence of the work in the landscape—even after deinstallation—actually made me smile!

These remnants called to mind a quote in an interview with Siegel in Sculpture magazine:

“I believe that we are the landscape, not only by our physical presence, but also by the messes we leave and the way we reconfigure all of the material around us—from the roadway to the recycling of cans to nuclear waste. Our presence is there in every molecule.” Excerpt from an interview with the artist and John K. Grande, a contributing editor for Sculpture, and curator of earth art at Canada’s Royal Botanical Gardens.

A systematic catalogue is a book that features every single painting or artefact in a collection. SysCats (that’s what curators call this type of catalogue) are very important because they show the world (the general public and scholars alike) what we have in our Museum, and they encourage further academic research. The Museum is planning a series of systematic catalogues, a volume for each of the collections in its holding. Curator Dennis Weller published the first of these catalogues, Seventeenth-Century Dutch and Flemish Paintings, which you can purchase at the Museum Store. (It’s a fabulous book!)

Second in the series, the Egyptian SysCat will feature all 37 artifacts, each beautifully illustrated with recent colour photographs. The catalogue entries will include a very detailed description (what is it, what was it used for, what does it mean, how old is it, where does it come from, who owned it before us, etc.), a translation of the hieroglyphs, publications in which the objects appeared … basically,  everything you always wanted to know about our Egyptian collection!

It’s long and tedious work (just ask Dennis), and I have been studying the Egyptian artefacts for five years in order to write this catalogue. Conservator Noelle Ocon and I have taken x-rays of several objects (including the coffins of Amunred and Djed Mut), Billy and I took the grain mummy for a CT scan last summer, and I have spent endless hours doing research and deciphering hieroglyphs. We even had a conservation scientist (think CSI for art) come to the NCMA to take samples of various pigments for analysis.

There are a few more things we want to do—take a sample for thermoluminescence dating and look at an object or two under ultraviolet light—before we complete the research. That’s what is happening this week. Noelle will set up lab equipment in the gallery in order to do a complete conservation assessment of the collection.

While the gallery are closed, you can certainly stand quietly by the stanchions to peek at the activities within. However, we do ask that you not disturb Noelle, me, or any staff member working in the gallery. If you have questions, just send an e-mail or post a comment on the blog. Thank you for your consideration.

Support for this research has been provided in part by GlaxoSmithKline and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Ann and Jim Goodnight Fund for Curatorial and Conservation Research and Travel.