Page 123 - Collecting and Displaying China's Summer Palace in the West

108 Kevin McLoughlin
reconstruction and critical investigation if such a reconstruction is indeed actually
possible. In 1867 the Catalogue of the Industrial Department (1st ed.) described the
then schema of display in the Museum, or more accurately diversity of schema since
no one overarching taxonomy of display was adhered to. Some exhibits were on the
basis of materials e.g. “metallurgical specimens” or “woollen fabrics”; while other
exhibit typologies were based upon the form of the end product e.g. “architectural
and engineering models” or “decorative furniture.” The legacy of the Museum’s first
director, George Wilson, was still very apparent in Museum displays with manu -
facturing processes forming the basis of yet other displays e.g. “silk manufacture”
or “the manufacture of pottery.” Yet other exhibits were displayed geographically,
and among these displays of “Chinese specimens” are noted.
Visitors to the Royal Scottish Museum in the early twentieth century were able
to purchase a Guide to the Collections. The first of these was published in 1908
by the Scotch Education Department. It included a plan of the Museum; a directory
of contents; and a preface setting out a basic history of the Museum which at that
point was already over 50 years old. 47 Throughout the Guide, key artifacts, groups
of artifacts, and techniques are highlighted with the use of bold text. So for in stance,
the Chinese Collection was located in Hall B on the 1st Floor and had the following
highlighted in bold: “a large vase in coral lac of Soochow”; a “ewer of solid gold”;
“Celadon ware”; “jade,” “soapstone”; “works in bronze” and so on. 48 The ewer
referred to here is clearly the Hope Grant Ewer, since nothing else of similar
description has ever existed in the Museum’s collections. A total of a dozen editions
of guides to the Museum were published every few years until the mid-1930s with
the last one published in 1935. 49 Later editions also listed the curatorial staff; their
roles; and the departments in which they worked. 50 The Museum was closed during
the period of World War II (1939–1945) and took some years after the war to recover
full operation. Perhaps due to a shift in priorities over the intervening time, the type
of General Guide to Collections which had been published at regular intervals in the
pre-war period was discontinued. The most recent Museum publication to feature
the ewer dates from 1996. In Harmony & Contrast: A Journey Through East Asian
Art, the ewer is for the first time provided with context regarding its source and the
circumstances of its provenance.

The fact that there was an enormous difference between the Chinese decorative
art made for trade and for the domestic market was not generally realised until
after the sacking of the Summer Palace in Beijing in 1860 and the flooding of
auction rooms in Paris and London with imperial treasures. In 1884 the Museum
was given a gold ewer by Lady Hope Grant which had been presented to her
husband Lieutenant General Sir Hope Grant, GCB, by his command, with an
inscription stating they had bought it at the sale of loot of the Summer Palace. 51

The ewer was undoubtedly on display before 1908, and may even have been on public
display in Edinburgh before its accession to the Museum in 1884. 52 An exhibition
of Industrial and Decorative Art was held in 1861 at the National Gallery, located
on The Mound in Edinburgh, in a building opened to the public in 1859. General
Sir Hope Grant was among the lenders to the 1861 exhibition, which featured over
1,600 artefacts, lending over a two dozen artefacts from his collection to the
exhibition. Among the artefacts lent by General Sir Hope Grant there were items