Lecture Series at the Bowes Museum, June 2024
As part of our ongoing partnership with the Bowes Museum in Barnard Castle, Felicia and Floris gave public talks at the museum in June. These talks were designed to highlight how the themes of the project are reflected in the fantastic collections at the Bowes. As always it was a joy to work with our fantastic partners at the Bowes and it was a wonderful opportunity to speak with and to the public there. In particular, we would like to thank Jane Whittaker and Howard Coutts from the Bowes museum for all of their help, hospitality and knowledge.
These talks are an important part of the project and facilitated not only closer work with the collections at the Bowes but also provided a way to highlight the fascinating migration histories to which the collections speak.
Felicia kicked off the lecture series on the 6th of June with her talk entitled ‘Crimes of Fashion: A Story of French Printed and Painted Textiles.’ This talk was based on Felicia’s research around textiles and linked closely to the beautiful and expansive collection of French textiles held at the museum. For nearly eighty years, from the late seventeenth to the mid-eighteenth century, all printed and painted textiles were banned in France. And yet everybody wore them: from princes of the blood to shopkeepers and peasants. Thousands of people were arrested, while mounted gangs of smugglers fought pitched battles with customs officers and army. But when the French state finally gave in and legalised their import and production, they faced a steep hurdle of technological catch up. How could France, after such a long prohibition, start rivalling production in Britain, Germany, and above all India? The answer is another story of skulduggery: of smuggling, industrial espionage, and migration – which ultimately led to the beautiful toiles we still copy and admire today.
Floris’s talk was three weeks later on the 27th of June and spoke to another class of objects that is present throughout the collection at the Bowes – porcelain. This talk, entitled ‘Korean Potters in Japan after the East Asian War of 1592–98,’ looked at the global history behind Japanese porcelain and the various actors involved in its making. Though little known in the West, the effects of the East Asian War of 1592–1598 can still be traced in East Asia today. At the time it redrew the political map of East Asia and had long term consequences on trade, economies, and national identity. One such effect was the importation of Korean potters and pottery knowledge to Japan; something that would shape the future of ceramics in Japan. From beautiful white plates from Arita, to rustic and delicately-glazed tea vessels from Hagi, none would have existed without migrant knowledge and skill. The beautiful examples in the Bowes Museum provided the perfect starting point for this talk by highlighting how the highly valued Japanese ceramics we know today are in fact an amalgam of the conflict in Korea, Korean knowledge, Chinese trade, Japanese domestic circumstances, and Western taste.
After each talk there was an opportunity for the audience to interact with some of the pieces from the Bowes collection that had been highlighted, such as an eighteenth-century French dress and a seventeenth century Japanese statue of a tiger. Alongside these specific pieces, the curators had carefully selected further objects from the collection that allowed people to get hands-on with the pieces and compare their visual and material qualities.
It was a great opportunity to present our research at the Bowes and to have such a wonderfully engaged and interested audience.