: Collections & Research

Hello! I’m Ellie, an undergraduate from School of Biosciences at Cardiff University (School of Biosciences - Cardiff University), completing a Professional Training Year as part of my undergraduate degree. I’ve spent the last few months at National Museum Cardiff working in the Natural Sciences department in Mollusca, spending my time aiding in the research conducted by curator Anna Holmes (Staff Profile: Anna Holmes | National Museum Wales). The project I’ve been involved in is to identify common British post-larval bivalve shells. This is important because there is very limited information available for identification of these species at post-larval stage, so the aim of this research is to provide a taxonomic tool for fisheries and other similar organisations to be able to identify these juvenile bivalve shells at a species level. So far, my main task has been imaging specimens from within the Museum collections, which contain an impressive number of shells with some dating back as far as the early 1900’s.

A common cockle, Cerastoderma edule, spanning just over 1mm in width, from the Phorson collection at National Museum Wales in Cardiff.

One particular part of the collections I have been lucky to study, and one found to be most useful to the project, is the Phorson collection. This collection consists of thousands of miniscule specimens, ordered by size and species, glued onto small pieces of black card. This collection is by far the most impressive I have yet seen, with the larger of the specimens on these size series slides all withinaround 6-8mm, so you can only imagine the time and effort that Ted Phorson himself spent ensuring his collection was to the utmost perfection. The collection itself was organized and curated by another student, Theodore (Curation of a British Shell Collection | National Museum Wales), a few years ago, who wrote about his time in the Museum and with this phenomenal collection: Adventures in the Mollusca Collections | National Museum Wales

Two soft-shelled clams, Mya arenaria, imaged from the slide pictured to the right, from the Phorson collection (smallest specimen being number 1 on the slide, the larger specimen being number 20).

Ted Phorson’s incredible collection consists of 160 different shell species, all of which have been carefully and precisely arranged (Ted Phorson: A personal recollection | The Conchological Society of Great Britain and Ireland (conchsoc.org)). I have found in my five months of imaging many different types of specimens of bivalve shells that Phorson’s collection is a shell enthusiast’s paradise. It is a dream to image this collection, where every shell is perfectly sorted, ready and waiting in a patient line to be photographed. Other specimens from other collections have to be gently put into position, one by one, so the camera can capture the exact angle of each shell, which can be rather time consuming.

The setup for taking images of the specimens (pictured is the Canon camera attached to the Leica microscope tube).

February each year is LGBT+ History Month, with events throughout the month that help to increase the visibility of LGBTQ+ people, their history and lived experiences. Each year there is usually a theme, and this year it is ‘Politics in Art’. 

Amgueddfa Cymru has a number of events planned for LGBT+ History Month 2022: 

On display at St Fagans National Museum of History throughout February 2022 will be the original design drawn by Jonathan Blake for the Lesbians and Gay Men Support the Miners badge from 1985. This will be displayed in the Wales is… gallery at St Fagans alongside an original LGSM badge. Lesbians and Gay Men Support the Miners were a group that raised money for striking south Wales miners during the 1984-85 strike. By the end of 1984 there were eleven branches of LGSM across the UK. Each of these branches ‘twinned’ with a particular community – with the London branch twinning with communities in the Neath, Dulais and Upper Swansea valleys. This story, and LGSM’s visit to Onllwyn, became immortalised in the 2014 film Pride. Last year Mark Ashton, who was one of the founders in 1984 of LGSM, was one of the faces of LGBT+ History Month 2021, so it is great that again this year we are able to celebrate the amazing achievements of Lesbians and Gay Men Support the Miners.

 As part of Amgueddfa Cymru’s ‘Museum Talks’ series, curator Mark Etheridge will give a talk on the LGBTQ+ Collection at St Fagans and the importance of representation in museum collections. You can book here -  Museum Talks: LGBTQ+ Collections at St. Fagans | English | National Museum Wales

We have an exciting project being developed for LGBT+ History Month. Funded by Arts Wales, composer Gareth Churchill’s piece LGBTQ+ History Wales Songbook will be performed at Oakdale Institute at St Fagans during LGBT+ History Month. This will be a musical performance piece for voice and piano/keyboard that will celebrate and give musical voice to the St Fagans LGBTQ+ history collection. Initially it will be a closed performance that will be filmed and broadcast online. This will be broadcast as a finale to LGBT+ History Month, and will be advertised on the museum’s social media channels.

Of course, LGBTQ+ history should not just be celebrated during one month each year. So throughout 2022 look out for further displays and events across Amgueddfa Cymru’s museum sites. These are just a few things we have planned:

At St Fagans some LGBTQ+ related objects are now on display in the Wales is… and Life is… galleries. As well as the LGSM items mentioned, these include a teapot and toy paddle relating to the Ladies of Llangollen (probably the most famous lesbian couple in history) and a songsheet for the song We’ll Gather Lilacs that was written by Ivor Novello.

From mid-March some LGBTQ+ objects from the LGBTQ+ collection will be on display at the National Waterfront Museum as part of the exhibition Trawsnewid. This is part of a project for LGBTQ+ young people aged 16-25 that explores queer and gender non-conforming figures in Welsh history and supports participants to create work inspired by their own experiences.

In September 2021 I was given the chance to work with the Llangorse Textile as part of my master’s degree placement at the museum. The Textile, is dated to the 10^th century, made from linen and silk, and is embroidered with fine motifs; however it was discovered charred and waterlogged after the crannog in which it was found had been destroyed by fire. It is very delicate and vulnerable to harm owing to the fire damage. For more information on the Llangorse Textile, please see the list at the end of the article.

The project I was set was to create new mounts for the undecorated pieces of the textile that aren’t on display, so they can be stored safely. They had been previously stored on boards with specially cut out depressions and covered with mesh and film to protect them. In the years since, the fragments had shifted slightly and so I was charged with making new mounts to keep the fragments safe.

Empty mount with stitched in label (Photo: E. Durrant)

The new mounting method had already been devised by the conservators at the museum (and used to display the decorated pieces of the Textile in the Gweithdy Gallery at St Fagans) by the time I arrived. Following this method, I cut out pieces of board to fit the shape of each textile fragment so they could be slotted together like a jigsaw puzzle. This was an important part of the process because this method of mounting allows the pieces to be moved around and reinterpreted.

The board was covered in specially dyed jersey fabric which has a slight knap that holds the textile fragments to the surface without the need for sewing to secure it, as this would damage its fragile structure. This was then trimmed, and a calico backing sewn down to neaten it.

A completed box of newly mounted Textile pieces (Photo: E. Durrant)

After the mounts were made, then came the daunting part – transferring over the pieces of textile from their old mount to their new ones! I consulted the original conservation notes to ensure loose pieces were located in the correct position; a tricky exercise as the Textile is an almost uniform black colour owing to the charring. Instead, the direction of the warp and weft of the small pieces, as well as their shapes were used to position them correctly. This was the part of the process that took the longest and required the most scrutiny!

Empty mount with stitched in label (Photo: E. Durrant)

All museum objects have assigned numbers, so that they are easily identifiable and therefore the next task was to create labels for the Textile. Because the pieces are so fragile, I created small tags and sewed them to the calico backing of the mounts so they can easily be tucked away when being stored or displayed but can also be accessible in the event they need to be consulted. This means that the tags won’t drag across the surface of the Textile. For added security in case the tags got lost, I also wrote the numbers on the calico backing.

Finally, it was time to think storage. As the problem with the old storage method was slippage, that was the main factor that needed to be addressed. The nap of the jersey halted movement to a degree, but it wasn’t enough. Therefore, I packed an archival box with foam and pinned around the freshly mounted textile pieces; the heads of the pins holding the mounts in place. The foam will help to reduce shock and by placing pins around the pieces I have ensured that they can’t move within the box.

A completed box of newly mounted Textile pieces (Photo: E. Durrant)

It was a thrilling opportunity to be able to work on such a unique piece of Welsh heritage and I would like to thank all the museum conservation staff for being so welcoming and sharing the wealth of their knowledge.

Further Reading/References:

Amgueddfa Cymru. 2007. The Llan-gors textile: an early medieval masterpiece. Available at: https://museum.wales/articles/1344/The-Llan-gors-textile-an-early-medieval-masterpiece/ [Accessed 4 January 2022]

Lane, A. and Redknap, M. 2019. Llangorse Crannog: The excavation of an early medieval royal site in the kingdom of Brycheiniog. Oxford: Oxbow Books

The past year and a half have certainly been a challenging time for the whole world: the Covid-19 pandemic, the social injustice highlighted by the Black Lives Matter movement, a climate crisis that feels increasingly apocalyptic. At a time like this, you may well wonder whether art is just an indulgence.

For my colleagues and me at Amgueddfa Cymru, the knowledge that art is important to our well-being and a powerful way to explore and express ideas has been reinforced by our Celf ar y Cyd projects, developed to share the arts across Wales in response to the current health crisis. We have been bringing art into hospitals to support NHS staff and patients during the pandemic, and set up an online magazine Cynfas as a new platform for creative and critical responses to Amgueddfa Cymru’s art collection.

Many of the artworks we have used for these projects were acquired by Amgueddfa Cymru with the support of the charity Art Fund (artfund.org). Art Fund has been helping the Museum acquire works for Wales’s national art collection since 1928 and been a key supporter throughout the period of lockdown as we have continued to work on developing the collection. Here are just a few examples.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Magdalene Odundo, Asymmetric I, 2016, terracotta
Purchased with support from Art Fund and the Derek Williams Trust
© Magdalene Odundo

For Magdalene Odundo, her pots convey a universal human language. Asymmetric I has a strong anthropomorphic character, seemingly alluding to a pregnant female body and promising new life. Drawing on African traditions, she emphasises the power of pots to heal and to commemorate those who have died, making this vessel an eloquent object for the times we are living through.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Henri le Sidaner, The House (La Maison), not dated, oil on panel
Bequeathed by Daphne Llewellin of Usk with Art Fund support

One feature of the pandemic has been the comfort people have derived from nature and from living in the moment. Three small late-19^th-century French paintings bequeathed through Art Fund are good examples of how artists have been particularly good at this. In The House, Henri Le Sidaner creates the sense of a quiet moment of reflection. We can imagine the artist quickly dabbing paint across his small panel to capture the light reflected off the windows and door of this vine-covered house.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Paul Delance, Beach with Seated Figures (La côte déserte), 1900, oil on panel
Bequeathed by Daphne Llewellin of Usk with Art Fund support

 

 

 

 

 

 

Paul Delance, View from a Hill, Sannois, Seine-et-Oise, 1890s, oil on panel
Bequeathed by Daphne Llewellin of Usk with Art Fund support

In Paul Delance’s Beach with Seated Figures (La côte déserte), we can sense the artist working briskly on a windy beach on the French Atlantic coast to record a bracing seaside excursion with friends. His View from a Hill, Sannois, Seine-et-Oise is another very personal work, thought to have been painted after the death of his wife in 1892 and showing him turning to art and to nature as sources of comfort.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Paul Sandby, Llanberis Lake, Castle Dol Badern and the Great Mountain Snowdon, about 1771, bodycolour on paper.  Purchased with support from the National Heritage Memorial Fund, Art Fund and a bequest from Mary Cashmore. Image © Sotheby’s

The landscape of Wales has long been a source of inspiration and pleasure. This is what Paul Sandby found in 1771, when he toured north Wales in the company of the young landowner and art patron Sir Watkin Williams-Wynn. His charming series of 21 views of this journey shows how the pioneering tourists delighted in discovering this dramatic land. One highlight was the outing by boat to Dolbadarn Castle, in the shadow of Yr Wyddfa/Snowdon.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bernd and Hilla Becher, Preparation Plants, 1966-1974, gelatin silver prints
Purchased with support from Art Fund and the Henry Moore Foundation
© Estate Bernd & Hilla Becher

The industrial heritage of Wales has also provided artists with rich subject matter. German artists Bernd and Hilla Becher were best known for their typologies, photographs of a single type of industrial structure organised into grids. Preparation Plants, 1966-1974 comprises nine photographs taken by the Bechers during visits to Britain between 1966 and 1974, including the south Wales collieries of Penallta, Fern Hill, Brittanic and Tower. Now that this whole industrial ecosystem of the Valleys has disappeared, these images feel like a kind of memorial.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Anna Boghiguian, A meteor fell from the sky, 2018, mixed-media installation
Purchased with support from Art Fund and the Derek Williams Trust
Courtesy the artist.

When Cairo-based artist Anna Boghiguian was invited to participate in the Artes Mundi 8 exhibition at National Museum Cardiff, she also immersed herself in the history of Welsh industry. Her installation A meteor fell from the sky creates links between Port Talbot’s Tata Steelworks and the company’s steelworks in India, focusing on the steel workers and their struggle for their rights.

 

 

 

 

 

 

John Akomfrah, Vertigo Sea, 2015, three-channel video installation
Acquired jointly with Towner Eastbourne with support from Art Fund (with a contribution from the Wolfson Foundation), the Derek Williams Trust, The Search Foundation through the Contemporary Art Society, and Towner Collection Development Fund
© Smoking Dogs Films. Courtesy Lisson Gallery

John Akomfrah’s video installation Vertigo Sea is a powerful reflection on humanity’s abuse of the sea, from the slave trade and modern migration to destruction of the marine environment. It couldn’t be a more relevant work for our times and is on show at National Museum Cardiff in the exhibition The Rules of Art?

 

Andrew Renton
Keeper of Art

From my recent musings you may have deduced that my research is centred around a beautiful group of marine bristleworms, which are given the name shovel head worms. Most people will be unfamiliar with shovel head worms, but they may have come across other marine bristleworms such as ragworms and lugworms used as bait by sea fisherman (the latter also being responsible for the casts of sand you see on sandy beaches), or the ornamental feather duster worms that people often keep in aquaria.

Lugworm casts and lugworm (photos by K. Mortimer and A. Mackie)