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Andrew Moore (Editor), Nathan Flis (Editor), Francesca Vanke (Editor)
Description: The Paston Treasure: Microcosm of the Known World
~The Paston Treasure has been a project of immense scope and scale, involving a wealth of contributors and supporters. Although it is impossible to thank everyone individually, we extend our gratitude to all who have been part of the project over the many years of its production.
Author
Andrew Moore (Editor), Nathan Flis (Editor), Francesca Vanke (Editor)
PublisherYale Center for British Art
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Acknowledgements
The Paston Treasure has been a project of immense scope and scale, involving a wealth of contributors and supporters. Although it is impossible to thank everyone individually, we extend our gratitude to all who have been part of the project over the many years of its production.
Dozens of institutional and private lenders have made this splendid exhibition possible at both the Yale Center for British Art (YCBA) and Norwich Castle Museum & Art Gallery (Norwich Castle Museum). Especially impressive numbers of treasures were lent generously by The Metropolitan Museum of Art (where special thanks are due to its former director, Thomas Campbell, and also to Wolfram Koeppe, Ellenor Alcorn, Deniz Beyazit, Ana Matisse Donefer-Hickie, Elizabeth Cleland, Navina Haidar, Tamara Schechter, Michelangelo Lupo, and Luke Syson); the Victoria and Albert Museum (thanks are extended to its director, Tristram Hunt, and also to Nicholas Humphrey, Helen Dawson, Kirstin Kennedy, Tessa Murdoch, and Rachel Church); the National Portrait Gallery, London (Nicholas Cullinan, Director, as well as Charlotte Bolland and Polly Saltmarsh are thanked for their instrumental contributions); and the National Trust (where gratitude must be expressed to Dame Helen Ghosh, Director General, and to David Taylor, Fernanda Torrente, and Benjamin Dale, as well as the house staff at Blickling Hall, Felbrigg Hall, Ham House, Nostell Priory, and Oxburgh Hall).
We are deeply grateful to all lending institutions, their directors, and the staff members who handled loan administration or provided invaluable advice about loans. Special thanks are due to the Ashmolean Museum (Xa Sturgis, Director, as well as Matthew Winterbottom and Tim Wilson); Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford (Richard Ovenden, Librarian, as well as Bruce Barker-Benfield, former Assistant Senior Librarian and Curator); British Museum (Hartwig Fischer, Director, as well as Dora Thornton, Kim Sloan, and Sheila O’Connell, former Curator of British Prints before 1880); Burghley House (The Marquess and Marchioness of Exeter, as well as Miranda Rock, House Director, and Jon Culverhouse, Curator); The Burrell Collection (Duncan Dornan, Head of Museums and Collections at Glasgow Life, as well as Rosemary Watt); Cambridge University Library (Jill Whitelock, Head of Special Collections, as well as Mark Purcell and Chris Burgess); Art Institute of Chicago (James Rondeau, President and Eloise W. Martin Director, as well as Christopher Monkhouse, former Eloise W. Martin Curator of European Decorative Arts, Leslie Fitzpatrick, and Anna Simonovic); English Heritage (Kate Mavor, Chief Executive, and Laura Houliston); Cleveland Museum of Art (William M. Griswold, Director and President, as well as Betsy Wieseman); Columbus Museum of Art (Nannette V. Maciejunes, Executive Director); Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University (Stephanie Wiles, Director, as well as Andy Weislogel and Brittany Rubin); Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge (Timothy Knox, Director, and Victoria Avery); Fondation Custodia (Ger Luijten, Director, as well as Mariska de Jonge); Charles Frodsham & Co. Ltd; The Lute Society (David Van Edwards, President); Johnny Van Haeften Ltd; Philip Mould Ltd; The Morgan Library & Museum (Colin B. Bailey, Director, as well as John Marciari); The Museum of London (Sharon Ament, Director, as well as Hazel Forsyth, Helen Parkin, and Flora Fyles); National Galleries of Scotland (Sir John Leighton, Director General, as well as Christopher Baker, former Deputy Director and present Director of the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Tico Seifert, and Aidan Weston-Lewis); Norfolk Record Office (Gary Tuson, County Archivist); The Worshipful Company of Painter-Stainers (R. C. Martin, Esq., Chairman of the Heritage Committee, and a warm note of thanks to Andrew Wilton, and Chris Twyman); The Paston Foundation (Kevin Grieve, Principal, as well as Peter Stibbons); Museum Het Prinsenhof, Delft (Patrick van Mil, Director, as well as Nico Schaap, and Suzanne Klüver); HM The Queen, to whom we express our deepest gratitude, as well as to Desmond Shawe-Taylor, Surveyor of The Queen’s Pictures, and to all who gave assistance at The Royal Collection Trust (especially the Photographic Services team); Rijksmuseum (Taco Dibbits, General Director); Royal College of Music, London (Colin Lawson, Director, as well as Peter Linnitt, Gabriele Rossi Rognoni, Erin McHugh, and Richard Wistreich); Saint Louis Art Museum (Brent R. Benjamin, Director, as well as Andrea Miller, and Judith Mann); Het Scheepvaartmuseum (Henk Dessens, Director of Collections, as well as Diederick Wildeman, and Fleur Bus); Schroder Collection (Caterina Badan); Sir John Soane’s Museum (Bruce Boucher, Director, as well as Helen Dorey, former Acting Director, Frances Sands, and Joanna Tinworth); Society of Antiquaries of London (Anooshka Rawden, Collections Manager, and Heather Rowland); The Walters Art Museum (Julia Marciari-Alexander, Director, as well as Eleanor Hughes, and Joaneath Spicer); and the Wellcome Library (Rowan De Saulles, Library Exhibition Liaison, as well as Marianne Templeton).
The YCBA would also like to single out the Norwich Castle Museum & Art Gallery (Steve Miller, Director, Norfolk Museums Service) for its generous loans, as well as our partner institutions at Yale University and their directors and staff, including the Yale University Art Gallery (Jock Reynolds, Henry J. Heinz II Director, as well as Lynne Addison and Patricia Kane), Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History (David K. Skelly, Director, as well as Gregory Watkins-Colwell, Eric Lazo-Wasem, and Timothy White), Yale Collection of Musical Instruments (William Purvis, Director, as well as Susan Thompson and Will Robbins), and Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library (Edwin Schroeder, Director), whose Curator of Early Modern & Osborn Collections, Kathryn James, had the foresight in 2014 to recommend the acquisition of Sir Robert Paston’s alchemical notebook (cat. 193 in this publication) after its importance was recognized by Jean Agnew, Francesca Vanke, and Elisabeth Fairman.
Norfolk Museums Service and the staff of Norwich Castle Museum & Art Gallery are hugely grateful to the Yale Center for British Art for bringing to Norwich the full and generous force of its experience in the organization of joint exhibitions with UK institutions, and enabling us to make this once-in-a-lifetime project happen at Norwich Castle Museum. We thank also the numerous Norfolk residents and partner institutions who have helped us, especially Arts Council England, all at the East Anglia Art Fund, including Amanda Geitner and Angela Dunn, who have supported us from the outset, and also the Paston Heritage Society.
Numerous private lenders also contributed important treasures to the exhibition. We are forever indebted to the Parker family of Browsholme Hall, Simon Bull, Glen Dooley, David Van Edwards, Sir John Guinness (and Jonathan Yarker, for his assistance), Lady Diane Lever, Nicholas Poole-Wilson (as well as Joanna Skeels of Bernard Quaritch Ltd), Toby Campbell of Rafael Valls Ltd, Bruno Schroder (and Timothy Schroder for his invaluable advice), Scott Sucher, Sarah Frere, the anonymous lender of the Carstian Luyckx painting to Norwich Castle Museum, and the anonymous lender of the pietre dure tabletop, for which we also wish to thank Harry Smith and Sarah Aspin of Gurr Johns Inc., as well as John Bryan II and Edward Town, for their guidance.
Following the lenders, we would like to thank warmly all the contributors to the publication—their work, we believe, will open new pathways in the history of art, including technical and collection studies, as well as other related fields. Additionally, we sincerely thank the Exhibitions and Publications team at the YCBA for its work on the book, especially the indefatigable Florence Grant, Shaunee Cole, Belene Day, Chris Lotis, and, at an earlier stage, the irreplaceable A. Robin Hoffman, former Assistant Head, and the incomparable Eleanor Hughes, former Associate Director of Exhibitions and Publications. We are deeply grateful to the book’s designer, Miko McGinty, and her wonderful design team, including Claire Bidwell, Rita Jules, and Anjali Pala. Our sincere thanks go to John Ewing for proofreading, Kathleen Friello for indexing, and Tina Henderson for typesetting the book. At Yale University Press, London, we are indebted to Heather McCallum, Publisher and Managing Director, Mark Eastment, Editorial Director (Art and Architecture), Clare Davis, Head of Production, Design and Editorial Management, Anjali Bulley, Project Manager and Editor, and our copyeditor, Miranda Harrison. We also would like to thank Sally Salvesen, former Senior Editor, who advised at an earlier stage in the project, as well as our colleagues at Yale University Press, New Haven, especially Patricia Fidler, Publisher for Art and Architecture, and Roland Coffey, Publicist. Last but not least in this category, we are forever grateful to Thomas Cook and James Abbot for the interest they took in our project, and for the Richard C. von Hess Foundation’s extraordinarily generous funding of this publication.
We are deeply grateful to the directors of our respective institutions whose visionary leadership made the project possible: Amy Meyers at the YCBA, and Steve Miller of the Norfolk Museums Service. A number of dedicated friends and colleagues at both institutions helped us to bring the project to fruition. At the YCBA, it was an immense privilege to work with Edward Town, Jessica David, Elisabeth Fairman, Sarah Welcome, and Lisa Ford. At the YCBA, we also thank other curatorial colleagues for their support: Glenn Adamson, Martina Droth, Gillian Forrester (former Senior Curator of Prints and Drawings), Matthew Hargraves, Lars Kokkonen, and Scott Wilcox. At Norwich Castle Museum, we would like to thank colleagues Giorgia Bottinelli, David Waterhouse, Ruth Battersby-Tooke, Lisa Little, and Lucy McNeill for curatorial help, and Colly Mudie and Anna McCarthy in the Learning Department. At the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, London, we thank Mark Hallett, Director of Studies, as well as Martin Postle, for their collegial support.
We cannot thank enough the YCBA’s indomitable Chief Registrar, Corey Myers, and Nancy Macgregor, Associate Registrar. We also wish to thank Timothy Goodhue, former Chief Registrar, for his wisdom and support. We likewise thank the ever patient Fi Hitchcock, Exhibitions Coordinator at Norwich Castle Museum, for her incredible dedication and attention to detail. We are ever grateful to Richard Johnson, Chief of Installation at the YCBA, who finally got to hang the “alligator” (catalogued in this publication as a crocodile). Johnson and his team—Kevin Derken, Rachel Hellerich, Abraham Omonte, Dylan Vitale, Gregory Shea, and all of the other art handlers—are veritable miracle workers. We warmly thank Lyn Bell Rose, Head of Design at the YCBA, and Tracie Cheng in that department. We extend gratitude and fondness to our exhibition designer, Stephen Saitas, and Stephen’s assistant, Ashley Geremia. Special thanks go to Mary Regan-Yttre, picture framer at the YCBA. At the Center, we also are indebted to staff members who formulated a rich programme around the exhibition, including Jane Nowosadko, Linda Friedlaender, Jaime Ursic, Jennifer Reynolds-Kaye, and Camilla Parente. The YCBA’s Communications and Marketing team was tireless in its promotion of the project: thanks to Beth Miller, Betsy Kim, Ronnie Rysz, Shayna Roosevelt, Amelia Ewan, and Kristin Dwyer. We also warmly thank Michael Appleby, Richard Caspole, John Champlin, Melissa Gold Fournier, Eric James, and Rebecca Sender at the YCBA. At Norwich Castle Museum, we thank our colleagues in the Display, Marketing, and Technical teams and our immediate professional friends for advice.
We are grateful to the conservators and conservation scientists who were involved in the examination of, or discussions about, The Paston Treasure, including Spike Bucklow, Jessica David, Ian McClure, Renate Woudhuysen-Keller, Daniela Leonard, Rica Jones, Kate Stonor, Mark Aronson, Soyeon Choi, and Marie-France Lemay; and to those who advised on, or carried out, treatment on objects for the exhibition, including Sarah Norcross-Robinson, Jonathan Clark, David Harvey, and Deborah Phipps at Norwich Castle Museum, Kathryn Hebb, Bridget Mitchell, Michael Hilliard, Nicholas Burnett, and Paula Zyats.
We also would like to thank all those involved with the making of the film, The Paston Treasure: A Vanitas Still Life Brought to Life in Film, including Jessica David, Edward Town, the team at Cultureshock Media, London (Elinor Hughes, Emilia Eyre), the talented musician Griffin Brown, and, again, Beth Miller, Amelia Ewan, and Kristin Dwyer. We sincerely thank the inimitable Stephen Fry, distinguished narrator of the film, and the lovely Jo Crocker.
The programme of events attending the exhibition was incredibly rich. Special thanks are due to James Delbourgo for his inspiring and thought-provoking lecture on the world of the collector Sir Hans Sloane. This dovetailed with two important colloquia: one on cabinets of curiosities, and the other on the representation of skin colour in seventeenth-century portraiture—both organized by the YCBA’s Research Department under the guidance of Martina Droth.
We are forever indebted to Nicholas McGegan for the wonderful concert and lecture, coordinated by Jane Nowosadko. Where music is concerned, the exhibitions on both sides of the Atlantic benefitted from a recording of Robert Ramsey’s Charon dialogue, commissioned by Norwich Castle Museum, beautifully performed by Richard Wistreich, Kieran White, Rosanna Wicks, and Elizabeth Kenny, and produced in the Royal College of Music studios under the direction of Stephen Harrington. A debt of gratitude is also due to faculty and staff at Yale University who contributed to, or advised on, intellectual and programmatic aspects of the project, including Dudley Andrew, Tim Barringer, Paola Bertucci, Edward Cooke, Kirsty Dootson, Michael Kerbel, Mark Mitchell, Archer Neilson, Katie Trumpener, and James Taylor.
Thanks also to the exceptionally bright Yale students who assisted with the project in innumerable ways: Griffin Brown, Julia Carnes, Emma Fallone, Lauren Kane, Max Norman, and Anya Powers. Additionally, we extend our thanks to the inspirational Pamela Smith and the staff and students of the Making and Knowing Project at Columbia University. And we thank past and present teachers, colleagues, and friends who asked thought-provoking questions, including David Adshead, Craig Clunas, David Higgins, Martin Kemp, Catharine MacLeod, Aimee Ng, Christopher Nobbs, Pablo Pérez d’Ors, and Aileen Ribeiro. A special note of thanks is due to Jean Agnew for sharing her invaluable knowledge of the Paston family.
Finally, thinking of them first and last, we would like to thank our families—especially Judy and Thomas Moore; Ana, Jonah, and Isabel Flis; and Paul Collins—for enduring the obsession, and long hours.
Andrew Moore
Nathan Flis
Francesca Vanke
Editors
Acknowledgements
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