Category: Modern(ish)

17th c. coin hoard found in farmhouse kitchen reno

Modern(ish)

Robert and Betty Fooks were already living a history nerd’s dream when they bought a 17th century Dorset farmhouse fixer upper in 2019. That escalated into full-on history nerd fantasyland when Robert took a pickaxe to the floor of their kitchen and discovered 1,029 gold and silver coins from the English Civil War (1642-1644).

South Poorton Farm in a small West Dorset hamlet was 400 years old when the Fooks’ bought it and in need of extensive renovation. They decided to remove the modern concrete floor to create more head space and ultimately dug down through almost two feet, passing through old flagstones and bare earth. Robert was putting in some sweat equity one October evening, digging up a bare earth area with his pickaxe when he encountered a glazed pottery bowl full of coins. The bowl was smashed, either by the pickaxe or earlier, but the coins were unscathed.

The discovery was reported to the local Finds Liaison Officer and the hoard was transferred to the British Museum for cleaning, documentation and valuation. The hoard contains gold coins, silver half crowns, shillings and sixpences of James I and Charles I, and silver shillings and sixpences of Elizabeth I, Phillip and Mary. They were deposited in a single event between 1642 and 1644, the early years of the First English Civil War.

Dorset, its arsenals and its ports were taken by Parliament when war broke out in August 1642, but Royalist troops regained a lot of that ground in 1643. Parliament still controlled the ports. While no major battles took place in the county, there was plenty of troop movement on both sides, lots of requisitioning of supplies, sieges, clashes, towns getting burned, just general wartorn misery all around. The kind of turbulence that leads people to put their life savings in a pot and bury it under the floor.

The hoard is a older than 300 years, contains precious metal and is a grouping of multiple coins, it fits the definition of official Treasure. Typically this type of find would end up property of the Crown and a local museum would be given the opportunity to acquire it for the price of the assessed valuation. No museum must have wanted it or been able to raise the cash, because the hoard was returned to the finders and the couple put the hoard up for auction at Duke’s Auctioneers in Dorchester. The total pre-sale estimate for was £35,000. The auction took place on April 23rd, and all together, the coins sold for £60,740. A 1636 Charles I Gold Unite Crown was the biggest seller going for £5,000. A 1627 Charles I Gold Unite took second place with £3,800. The oldest coins, a lot of three Philip and Mary silver shillings from around 1554-1558, sold for £240.

Bottles of cherries found at Washington’s Mount Vernon

Modern(ish)

Two 18th century glass bottles of cherries have been discovered in the cellar of George Washington’s Mount Vernon estate. The dark green glass bottles were found still sealed and upright. Their shape dates them to the 1740s or 50s, and since a brick floor was laid above them in the 1770s, that means they haven’t seen the light of day since before the Revolutionary War.

Mount Vernon Principal Archaeologist Jason Boroughs said, “This incredible discovery at Mount Vernon is a significant archaeological find. Not only did we recover intact, sealed bottles, but they contained organic material that can provide us with valuable insight and perspective into 18th-century lives at Mount Vernon. These bottles have the potential to enrich the historic narrative, and we’re excited to have the contents analyzed so we can share this discovery with fellow researchers and the visiting public.”

After the bottles were unearthed, each was carefully removed and transported to the Mount Vernon archaeology lab. Upon consultation with archaeological conservators, it was determined that removing the liquid contents would help stabilize the glass, which had not been directly exposed to the atmosphere for approximately two centuries. Cherries, including stems and pits, were preserved within the liquid contents, which still bore the characteristic scent of cherry blossoms familiar to residents of the region during the spring season.

The excavation is part of the Mansion Revitalization Project, a privately-funded $40 million comprehensive repair and preservation effort that will address long-standing structural problems, install a new heat, air conditioning and ventilation system and improve drainage around the cellar. Archaeologists are investigating areas that may be disrupted by the work to salvage any artifacts and remains.

The bottles will be at Mount Vernon until the end of the month, after which the bottles will undergo conservation while samples of the contents will be shipped to a laboratory for further scientific analysis.

17th c. garden maze in Italy opens to visitors

Modern(ish), Renaissance

One of the oldest garden mazes in Europe is reopening to the public after years of closure this weekend. The boxwood hedge maze at the Bufalini Castle in San Giustino, about 30 miles from Perugia in central Italy’s Umbria region, has been continuously maintained since the 17th century.

The original medieval fortress built by the Ghibelline Dotti family was destroyed in the late 15th century by order of the Republic of Florence. In 1487, it was transferred to Niccolò Bufalini who employed military architects to transform it into a square fortress with four towers in the corners surrounded by a wide moat. In the 1530s the family began turning the imposing fortress into an elegant country villa in High Renaissance style. The interior was modified to create large, airy rooms arranged around a central courtyard with columned porticos. Loggias were added to the façade and a new centered monumental entrance. The formal gardens with fruit trees, rare flowers, medicinal herbs, vegetable garden, roses and tall trees to draw birds, fountains and the boxwood hedge labyrinth were built up in stages during the 17th and 18th centuries.

Between the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, its park was organized into seven main areas enclosed by perimeter paths set at the edge of the moat and boundary wall. One of these was occupied precisely by the labyrinth created for the leisure of the lords and formed by tall boxwood hedges. The layout, measuring approximately 670 square meters, is trapezoidal in shape with three distinct centers, with a single access, on either side of which two cypress trees, still living, were planted on November 4, 1694, and are among the oldest trees in the garden. In the castle’s archives are some drawings relating to its design and construction, in particular a plan dated 1706, the Pianta del palazzo e giardino della villa di S. Giustino dei sign.ri March.si Bufalini, from which it is possible to see how its layout has remained unchanged over the centuries. This suggests that at least part of the boxwood plants are those planted in 1692, making the labyrinth at Castello Bufalini one of the oldest in Europe.

“The labyrinth is not only an exceptional botanical work, but an esoteric idea that is transformed into an experience,” says Costantino D’Orazio, director of the National Museums of Perugia-Regional Directorate Museums Umbria “That’s why the reopening of the labyrinth at Bufalini Castle enriches the charm of a place that will hold many surprises for the public in the coming years.”

“The opening to the public of one of the most interesting hedge labyrinths on the Italian scene,” says Veruska Picchiarelli, Director of Castello Bufalini “It is part of a process of recovery and re-evaluation of other areas, both internal and external, of the entire complex, which will lead starting in the coming months to double and totally upgrade the tour route.”

The castle was acquired by the Italian state in 1989. It is a rare example of a historic stately home in Italy that is largely intact, not just architecturally but in its artworks and furnishings as well. The collection of paintings, furniture, tapestries, majolica vases, dinner services, crystal and ancient busts assembled by the Bufalini family from the 16th through the 19th century are still in place, giving visitors a unique view of the lifestyle of an Italian noble family as fashions and tastes evolved.

1777 eye-witness sketch of camp followers donated to Museum of the American Revolution

Modern(ish), Museums

A previously unknown and unpublished sketch depicting soldiers and camp followers marching through Philadelphia in 1777, has been donated to the Museum of the American Revolution. The soldiers were troops from the North Carolina Brigade, and this pen-and-ink drawing is the first depiction of them known. It is the second known eye-witness drawing of camp followers.

The sketch captures the North Carolina Brigade going through Philly on August 25, 1777, on their way to join the Continental Army before the Battle of Brandywine (September 11, 1777). Two soldiers walk in front of a large open wagon. The wagon driver is on horseback between them and an officer on horseback takes up the rear. The wagon carries two women, one holding a baby.

The inclusion of female camp followers – who shared life on campaign with enlisted husbands and fathers and supported the troops by sewing, doing laundry, and selling food – exemplifies a direct defiance of known regulations at the time about how women following the army could use wagons. Earlier in August, before the march depicted in the sketch took place, Washington himself brought up issues of women and children slowing down his troops, calling them “a clog upon every movement.”

The reverse of the page has sketches of five men in dynamic action, three of them captured drawing their swords from different angles, two throwing punches.

The scene was identified by an inscription written underneath it: “an exact representation of a waggon belonging to the north carolina brigade of continental troops which passed thro Philadelphia august done by …” Unfortunately, the name of the artist was lost in an old attempt to repair the paper. Museum curator Matthew Skic analyzed the handwriting and compared the style of the drawing to other works from the period, ultimately identifying the artist as Pierre Eugène du Simitiére, a portrait painter, naturalist and coin collector born in Geneva, Switzerland, in 1737 who became a naturalized citizen of New York in 1769. He moved to Philadelphia in 1774.

It’s more than fitting that this unique view of history penned by du Simitiére should join the collection of the Museum of the American Revolution. He was a dedicated collector. He founded the first museum of natural history in the United States from his private collection of specimens and his coin collection was the first to be sold in America. He assiduously documented the Revolution as it happened, before it was even a revolution, in fact. He collected ephemera (pamphlets, broadsides, communications, newspaper stories) of democratic uprisings in America going back to the 17th century. He attempted to publish his massive history of the American Revolution, but his appeal to Congress for financial report failed. His art put food on the table, and even then he was deeply involved in the newly-independent country. He was a consultant for the committees who designed the Great Seal of the United States, and he added the Eye of Providence to the pyramid.

“We were thrilled to piece together the many illuminating and significant parts of this sketch’s history through our unparalleled scholarship here at the Museum of the American Revolution,” said Dr. R. Scott Stephenson, President and CEO of the Museum. “As we round out our celebration of Women’s History Month, we revel in the discovery of this new depiction of female camp followers as highlighting the lesser-known stories and critical roles of women throughout the American Revolution are at the heart of the Museum’s offerings.”

Only surviving full Māori green parrot feather cloak goes on display in Perth

Modern(ish), Museums

The kahu kākāpō, after conservation ©2022 Trustees of the British Museum, ©2022 Culture Perth and Kinross.The only surviving complete example of a Māori kahu kākāpō, a traditional cloak made of the feathers of the critically endangered green, ground-dwelling kākāpō parrot, has been restored and put on display for the grand opening of the new Perth Museum in Perth, Scotland.

The kākāpō, charmingly nicknamed the moss chicken, is the world’s only flightless parrot and was once common on the three main islands of New Zealand. Its population began to decline with the arrival of Polynesian settlers. The humans hunted them for their meat and feathers and the rats the humans brought with them devastated their eggs and chicks. The arrival of Europeans drove them to the brink of extinction. Attempts to maintain populations of the birds in nature preserves began in the late 19th century, but were thwarted by introduced predators like stoats and feral cats. Finally in the 1980s the Kākāpō Recovery plan was developed, establishing populations on islands cleared of predators. Breeding and feeding programs have helped bring a small population of around 270 back, and just last year the first kākāpō were reintroduced to the mainland.

The cloak was collected by David Ramsay, a native of Perth who sailed to Australia as a ship’s surgeon in 1823 and stayed there. He gave the kahu kākāpō and the rest of his collection to the Perth Literary and Antiquarian Society in 1842. The cloak is believed to have been made in the early 1800s, after contact with Europeans, and was well-preserved overall, but the feathers and plant fibers it is made of are so inherently fragile that any handling at all can cause damage and loss.

Today the kahu is in the permanent collection of the Perth Museum and Art Gallery (PMAG). PMAG turned to the British Museum’s Organic Artefact Conservation studio for expert assistance in treating the delicate materials and brought in a Māori curatorial advisor from the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa to ensure the taonga (meaning “treasure”) was treated in keeping with Māori cultural practices.

Once arrived at the British Museum, the cloak was examined to determine the areas of greatest concern. The feather shafts and the dried, unprocessed stands of New Zealand flax (pōkinikini) required urgent stabilization.

The feathers of the kākāpō had been woven into the ground weave of the cloak by their very fine, thin shafts. Over time, some of the feathers had become bent, partially split at their shafts, or completely detached from the weave. To support them, a strong but lightweight mulberry paper was used, after being toned and cut to match the colour and very narrow lengths of each damaged shaft, which were often less than 2mm wide. Each piece was then carefully secured along individual shafts with a conservation grade adhesive and left to dry under gentle pressure.

The treatment of the pōkinikini required similarly delicate care. The black, dyed sections along the pōkinikini lengths were likely coloured with an iron-tannin dye, which over time had eaten away at the fibres, making the dyed areas exceedingly weak.

To support these areas, narrow strips of lightweight mulberry paper were toned to match the pokinikini’s alternating dyed and undyed stripes. The paper strips were then applied as discreet bridges, linking sections of damaged pōkinikini to ensure no areas were lost. For other types of damage, toned mulberry paper was pulped into fibres, and then carefully inserted into the centre of the cylindrical pōkinikini strand to bring together and support the split fibres. Overall, the treatment for these fragile elements required more than 100 hours of sustained focus and manual dexterity, along with very fine-tipped forceps and strong magnification!

To investigate how this cloak was worn, the team made a mock-up of a stand to drape it on. They realized the wear pattern in the feathers on the left and top edges suggests the cloak was worn with an opening on the right. The holds where the laces were threaded through were barely stretched at all, indicating the cloak was worn rarely. The museum then made a custom mount so it can be displayed safely.

The new Perth Museum, located in the former Perth City Hall, officially opened its doors Saturday, March 30th, with the kahu kākāpō one of the key displays.