Exhibition by PhD students Simon Spier & Lindsay MacNaughton

John and Joséphine Bowes: Collecting the Far East

1st September – 31st October

Lindsay and Simon at their display at Tennants.

CSAAM PhD student Simon Spier, together with fellow PhD student Lindsay MacNaughton from Durham University, have developed a new exhibition display at Tennants Auctioneers  'Garden Room' at Leyburn, North Yorkshire.  Opening on 2nd September, the exhibition is the result of Simon and Lyndsay's research on the collections at The Bowes Museum, Barnard Castle. Both are AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Partnership PhD students, working on projects as part of the collaborations with The Bowes Museum.  The exhibition is the third loan display of highlights from the extraordinary collections at The Bowes Museum.

Simon and Lyndsay's display explores nineteenth-century Europe’s fascination with the Far East through the collections at The Bowes Museum.  The Bowes Museum’s founders, John (1811-1885) and Joséphine Bowes (1825-1874), collected a significant amount of fine and decorative art that represents non-Western cultures. This exhibition provides the opportunity to highlight some pieces not normally on prominent display, and to investigate them in greater detail. Exquisite examples of furniture, ceramics, textiles, painting and curiosities, mainly from China and Japan, have been selected to illustrate some of the ways in which wealthy Europeans collectors were able to engage with foreign cultures.

The exhibition also investigates the wider influences of the East on Europe. In particular, it describes the influx of exotic objects into the auction houses and the grand International Exhibitions of the middle decades of the nineteenth century.

For more details on the exhibition, and on the public talk that Simon and Lyndsay are doing on 5th October, do follow this link:

http://tennantsgardenrooms.com/?post_type=events&p=4699