Page 122 - Collecting and Displaying China's Summer Palace in the West

“Rose-water Upon His Delicate Hands” 107
belong to development and analogies, and the social context of production
and use. 40
Wilson’s concept of the museum and its didactic function in relation to production
processes, material, and technology continued to influence the Museum over the next
few decades, and his vision seems to have been shared by his successor Thomas
C. Archer (d.1885). There appears to have been a greater interest in decorative
and ethnographic arts by the late 1860s and early 1870s, evidenced by the des -
criptions of galleries, displays, of artifacts listed as being on display in the Catalogue
of Industrial Department (2nd ed.) published in 1869. 41 Returning to the Museum
register of 1884, and to consider latter attempts, in pencil, to value the ewer which
appear beside the original entry. Although the handwriting is not identical it can not
be assumed that the entries were not contemporary, though this seems unlikely.
In this penciled-in subtext, the weight of the ewer is written down as 80 ounces
avoir(dupois). 42 After conversions between avoirdupois and troy ounces and further
calculations to assay the bullion value of the ewer, a rounded up value of £300 is
settled upon and assigned to the ewer in the final column to the right. 43 All of this
suggests a set of institutional reflexes and values focused on financial worth and the
formal qualities of the ewer, and a curious lack of interest in either the textual nature
of the ewer, or its imperial provenance. 44 A survey of other annotations found beside
entries in the same volume of the Museum Register reveals that they deal with
identification; disposals (deaccessions resulting either in destruction or sale) often
countersigned by the then director; loans or more rarely transfers to other institutions;
and even more rarely with accidental breakages. Mice are in some instances recorded
as another source of damage! 45 In some instances, a reconsideration of the dating or
source of an object is appended under this column. These annotations were made
throughout the course of the twentieth century and are in most instances dated, thus
suggesting that the ewer’s pencil annotations were in fact made some time after its
entry into the Museum register. The calculations of financial value made alongside
the ewer’s entry appear however to be unique. Despite the provisional nature of pencil
markings added to the entry on the ewer, these calculations were appended in the
most formal documentary record of acquisitions and donations available within the
Museum—the Museum Register. They therefore assume a paratextual importance
which, although anonymous in terms of both period and authorship, nevertheless
represents an official institutional appraisal.

The Display of the Ewer until 2008

Displays of material from East Asia had taken place in the Museum since the late
1860s. In the Catalogue of Industrial Department (2nd ed.) published in 1869 a
variety of Chinese objects are listed as being on display including enamels, lacquer -
ware, textiles and dress, and jade together with their location in the Museum in the
North-East Room. In the same catalogue there is an entry for “279. A Desk Case in
Window, North Side.” Among the contents of which are listed “Two Tinted Ivory
Carvings from a screen in the Summer Palace. Presented by Dr Charles Wilson,
Edinburgh.” These are the first datable objects from the Yuanmingyuan to enter the
Museum collections. 46 However, documentary information about the display of East
Asian artifacts during this period and up until the 1990s is sparse, and awaits a fuller