Rare 18th c. clock returned to Brighton museum 23 years after theft

Modern(ish), Museums

A rare 18th century musical automaton clock stolen from Preston Manor in Brighton in 2001 has been recovered by Sussex Police and returned to the museum. It was rediscovered when it was offered for sale at auction last year. The auction house subscribes to the Art Loss Register (ALR) due diligence service which checks items against the lost art database before a sale, and its experts recognized it as the stolen clock.

Lucy O’Meara from the Art Loss Register said: “The ALR’s research team identified the item as a match, despite extensive restoration and alteration to the clock.

“It had different urn finials and different feet making it appear at first glance to be a different clock. This was one of over 400,000 items our expert team checks against our database every year.

“Our recovery team used their detective skills to compare the wood grain which matched up exactly. After we identified the match, our team liaised with the auction house and notified Brighton & Hove Museums of the location of the stolen clock. Sussex Police’s Rural Crime Team then recovered the item from the auction house and returned it to the Museum.”

The clock was stolen on February 12, 2001, in broad daylight when Preston Manor was open to visitors. Staff pressed the alarm buttons and called the police but the thieves fled in a getaway car they had parked near the entrance. The Sussex Police investigated the theft, but no suspects were ever found. Two years later, the clock was sold at auction. At that time, the auction house had no information about its ownership history and it was not subscribed to the ALR, so the sale went through with nobody the wiser. The collector who bought it 20 years ago relisted it with the same auction house, only this time the ALR’s crack team stepped up to the plate.  The trail from the sale 20 years ago was too cold for the police to track down anyone involved in the theft.

The clock was made by Thomas Hunter Jr. of London, one of the top clockmakers in the country, in around 1760-70. It is a bracket table clock with painted maritime decoration above the clock face. It is both an automaton and a musical clock: ships above the clock face sail to the music every hour on the hour. The clock was acquired by the Stanford family of Preston Manor and was in the estate by at least 1905. It was placed in the south-facing Morning Room with a view of the sea, linking the maritime motif of the timepiece with Brighton’s own history as a seaside town.

When Preston Manor and its contents were given to the city in 1932, the clock was part of the gift. It quickly became one of the more popular features of the estate. Visitors assembled in the room to hear the music play and the ships sail among the painted waves. Brighton & Hove Museums plans to restore the clock back to working order so it can return to delighting visitors at Preston Manor.

Norton Disney dodecahedron goes back to Lincolnshire

Ancient

The unusually large and pristine Roman copper alloy dodecahedron found at Norton Disney last June is returning to Lincolnshire for the first time since its discovery. It will go on display at Lincoln Museum starting this Saturday as part of the Festival of History, a city-wide celebration of Lincoln’s heritage, as a centerpiece of the city’s Roman history.

Alongside the dodecahedron display, as part of the festival visitors can meet the mighty Romans themselves in the museum’s atrium, where the legion has returned to ‘Lindum Colonia’. And explore some of the many other Roman treasures that have been unearthed across the city and county in the archaeology gallery.

For those craving a deeper dive into Lincoln’s history, don’t miss out on a guided tour of Posterngate, where you can explore the hidden Roman gateway beneath the city streets[…]

Lincoln’s Festival of History events will take place over the long weekend (May 4-6th), which is a holiday in Britain, but the dodecahedron will remain on display until early September.

It is sure to be a big draw to the museum. The discovery of the dodecahedron made headlines around the world, and the North Disney History and Archaeology Group, the community archaeology organization that unearthed it, has gotten a barrage of messages from people sharing their theories about how the objects may have been used and why. The organization will return to the find site in June to pick up where the excavation left off when they ran out of time and money. While odds are slim that they’ll find a key clue to answer all the questions about the Gallo-Roman dodecahedra, the Norton Disney example is one of the only ones to have been found in its original depositional context and archaeologically excavated, so there’s at least a chance of finding out more about these intriguing artifacts.

The Stone of Destiny was a doorstep

Ancient, Medieval, Modern(ish)

The Stone of Destiny, the oblong block red sandstone used in the coronation of Scottish monarchs until it was snatched by King Edward I in 1296 and used in the coronation of English and British monarchs thereafter, started out as a step or threshold. A recent analysis of the 335-pound stone found the wear pattern on top of the stone was likely caused by many a foot treading upon it rather than by many royal butts perched upon or over it.

The first historical record of the Stone of Destiny being used for a coronation is Alexander III’s in 1249. It was reportedly covered in gold silk cloth, so its heavily worn surface was obscured from view. When Edward Longshanks pillaged it, he had it built in to his throne at Westminster, so again the stepped-upon surface was not visible. It was officially returned to Scotland in 1996 and displayed in the Crown Room of Edinburgh Castle with other Scottish regalia.

It left Scotland again last year for a very brief stint back inside Edward’s throne for the coronation of Charles III. Before its departure, researchers examined the stone in detail using digital technology to scan the surface, revealing the wear pattern of steps that can’t be seen at a glance. This indicates it had a long history of non-coronation use, perhaps as the step to a monumental structure like an early church or maybe even a Roman building.

Dr Nicki Scott, Senior Cultural Significance Advisor at HES, said: “While we know some inauguration rituals did involve the individual being inaugurated to step onto the stone, such as at Dunadd Hillfort, the level of wear on the Stone of Destiny doesn’t support such use.

“Even several hundred years of such a ritual wouldn’t create the level of wear we see. It’s more likely that the stone had earlier served as a step, although we don’t know the context for this.”

Professor Dauvit Broun, Chair of Scottish History at the University of Glasgow, who contributed to the new interpretation at Perth Museum, said: “The evidence is quite compelling. It means that, at some point, the Stone was repurposed as an inaugural throne.

Unfortunately there are no surviving origin stories with a plausible kernel of truth that could help explain the scientific findings. The legends about the Stone of Destiny all claim exotic provenance and quasi-miraculous journeys from distant lands. One of the myths about the stone is that it was “Jacob’s pillow,” the stone Jacob laid his head on when he dreamt about the ladder to heaven (Genesis 28:10-18). Another says that it was transported to Tara in Ireland by the daughter of a pharaoh and then brought to Scone by Kenneth MacAlpin, the legendary founder of Scotland.

After the coronation of Charles III, the stone returned not to Edinburgh, but to its ancient homeland in Perth for the first time in 700 years. It is now the centerpiece of the new Perth Museum.

Casa Buonarroti digitizes Michelangelo’s drawings

Museums, Renaissance

The Casa Buonarroti museum in Florence has embarked on a new project to digitize figure studies, architectural designs and handwritten notes by Michelangelo and make the ultra-high resolution images available on their website. The goal is to upload the most significant drawings in the Casa Buonarroti’s collection to create an online catalogue of Michelangelo’s greatest works on paper, and now first 20 pages have now been uploaded.

The 20 pages include some recto and verso (front and back) sheets, denoted on the thumbnail with two arrows in the upper right corner. It’s a fascinating glimpse into Michelangelo’s art and life, seeing, for example, an iconic image like the dynamic male nude preparatory study for his Battle of Cascina fresco on one side of the page and his literal shopping list on the other. Or anatomical studies for one of his Pietà sculptures backed by anatomical studies for figures in the Last Judgement in the Sistine Chapel.

The digitization of these materials gives artists, scholars and anyone else with even a passing interest access to works that are too fragile to be widely handled. The paper has to be protected from exposure to light, fluctuating temperatures and humidity levels, so the sheets are kept in carefully controlled environments. The pages were conserved before digitization, removing the artifacts of previous interventions and revealing some drawings that were obscured by flawed restoration attempts. Each sheet is also extensively annotated with background information, transcripts of texts and historic and artistic commentary.

Here’s one passage from a Madonna and Child study illustrating how content-rich the curator’s comments are:

The observation of the drawing allows one to follow the entire compositional process. First of all, Michelangelo sketched out both protagonists in black chalk, with a highly spontaneous handling: the fast, parallel hatching is combined with a soft, loose outline, drawn with a tormented manner. Initially, the face of the Madonna appears faintly sketched to the left, intent on looking down, in profile, at the Child in her arms, to be modified and rotated up three-quarters to the right, while gazing into the distance with an absorbed expression. Perhaps lost in the premonition of future pains, the Virgin’s head is executed on a smaller dimensional scale than the rest of the imposing body and with much more finished results, thanks to a soft chiaroscuro obtained with a broad-tipped black chalk, which lends the face a veil of shaded melancholy. This initial phase of compositional analysis was followed by the pictorial deepening of part of the figure of the Infant Jesus, perfectly executed even in the colouring, thanks to the overlapping of multiple techniques, all typical of Michelangelo’s heritage. The artist outlined the profile, already characterised by numerous pentimenti, with a red chalk, which he used together with a very shaded black chalk also to model the body with its rosy complexion, and interpreted the precious chiaroscuro effects with highlights of white lead, applied with chalk for the parts in light, and retouches of brown ink wash, applied with a very fine-tipped brush, for the areas of greater darkness. At this point, Michelangelo had to abandon work on the sheet, leaving the drawing with a distinct difference in finish, intentional and related to his graphic interests.

Boston museum returns Egyptian child sarcophagus to Sweden

Ancient, Looting, Museums

The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, has returned an ancient Egyptian clay child sarcophagus to Uppsala University’s Museum Gustavianum more than 50 years after it was stolen under mysterious circumstances.

Made of alluvial clay, the sarcophagus dates to the 19th Dynasty (1295–1186 B.C.). It is 43 inches high and vividly painted. The child is depicted wearing a headdress of blue and yellow stripes tied with a headband of white, blue and red lotuses. Lotus petals cover the collar on his chest. The head and chest are on a cut-out section that can be removed to access the interior. Beneath the collar are more lotus flowers, wadjet eyes and the goddess Nut with outstretched wings flanked by Anubis seated jackals. The bottom part of the sarcophagus is covered with hieroglyphs identifying the deceased as a boy named Pa-nefer-neb.

The MFA Boston acquired it in 1985, and the ownership record seemed to be thorough and above-board, even at a time when museum’s paid zero attention to that sort of thing. It was sold by one Olaf Liden claiming to be an agent of Swedish artist Eric Ståhl (1918–1999). A letter ostensibly written by Ståhl described how he had personally discovered the sarcophagus in Amada, Egypt, in 1937, and the Egyptian government had later gifted it to him for his aid in the archaeological rescue operations before construction of the Aswan Dam. The coffin’s authenticity was attested to in writing by Swedish experts.

It was the MFA itself that realized this story was complete fiction, that Ståhl was never involved in any archaeological excavations in Egypt, that the letter and authentication documents were forged and the sarcophagus had been purloined from the Swedish museum, smuggled to Boston and fraudulently sold. The trigger was the 2008 publication of previously unseen photographs from the archive of the Petrie Museum. The sarcophagus was in one of the pictures: a shot of a 1920 archaeological excavation in Gurob, Egypt, by the British School of Archaeology under the direction of British archaeologist Flinders Petrie. A note with the photograph stated the coffin had been given to Uppsala University in 1922 as part of the partage system that was common at the time. All institutions involved in digs got a cut of the artifacts, basically, in exchange for their funding and fieldwork.

MFA curators initiated an investigation and contacted the Gustavianum to let them know about the discrepancy. Provenance researchers from both museums cooperated and shared information during the process. They found that the sarcophagus went missing from the museum’s stores in 1970 or earlier. It was not deaccessioned or traded. Both parties came to the same conclusion: the coffin had been taken from the Gustavianum illegally and should be returned.

“It is very gratifying that this return has now come to pass. The child’s sarcophagus is an important item in our collections and it means a lot to the museum and the University that it has now been returned to us. The sarcophagus is an excellent complement to our Egyptian collections and will now be available for research,” says Mikael Ahlund, Museum Director of Gustavianum, or Uppsala University Museum. “But the sarcophagus needs some work and it will be some time before it can be shown to the public in Gustavianum,” he adds.

You can see the petite coffin being unpacked upon its return to Sweden in this video.