Amazing Museum collections on the Great West Way®

from Great West Way Travel Magazine | Issue 05

Sustainable Travel on the Great West Way®

Curators of some of the best museums along the Great West Way reveal what single item in their collections they would choose to save if disaster struck.

HOLBURNE MUSEUM

**Will Cooper, Curator of Contemporary Programmes**

WHAT I WOULD SAVE FROM A FIRE:

“Diana and Actaeon, Siena, tinglazed earthenware, about 1495. There’s a lot to like about this incredible piece of c15th maiolica; the naive style of the figures, Actaeon mid transformation but looking more like a stag wearing a pair of green 501s, Diana’s coquettish look after hitting Actaeon with her magic arrow. It’s really got it all, but what I think I like most is that it’s funny. I was often taught that museums are serious places of study and contemplation, which of course they can be, but I like to highlight the stuff that makes me laugh. And this sure does, not bad for something over 500 years old.”

ATHELSTAN MUSEUM

**Deborah Clogg, Chair of Collections Committee**

WHAT I WOULD SAVE FROM A FIRE:

“One item we would definitely save is our recently acquired watercolour of Malmesbury Abbey by JMW Turner. Turner visited Malmesbury three times in the 1790s during his sketching tours and did many drawings of the Abbey. In about 1827 he used these drawings to produce our watercolour, which was then engraved and published in his Picturesque Views in England and Wales. It is fantastic that a completely voluntary run museum, thanks to generous support from the National Lottery Heritage Fund and the Art Fund, is now able to display, without charge, this work by one of Britain’s greatest artists in the town to which it relates".

URE MUSEUM OF GREEK ARCHAEOLOGY

WHAT I WOULD SAVE FROM A FIRE:

“If I had the power, I'd like to save the statues at the entrance – a Roman marble statue of Venus/Aphrodite from Cyrene (on loan from the British Museum) and a 20th-century interpretation of the head of Helen of Troy, made by Reading's sculptor Eric Stanford, who sadly passed away last year, but made his beautiful image of Helen on the side while working on his powerful Spanish Civil War Monument, now in Forbury Gardens in Reading. For an easy grab I'd get the Romano-Egyptian writing tablet, now in our Education case".

MAIDENHEAD HERITAGE CENTRE

Alan Mellins, Trustee

WHAT I WOULD SAVE FROM A FIRE:

“The Bray Village Fire Pump, from 1737, which is awaiting restoration before we can put it on public display. It remained in use for 200 years until 1938, when Bray Parish Council ceased to be responsible for fire-fighting".

The 270-year-old artefact was being kept in storage in the village of Bray. Council Chairman Geoff Hayes explained "Something had to happen to it. It just seemed such a shame that it had to stayed stored in a barn."

WILTSHIRE MUSEUM

David Dawson, Director

WHAT I WOULD SAVE FROM A FIRE:

“White Horses by Eric Ravilious. This was a 'dummy' for a planned children's book on White Horses and Hill Figures that inspired Ravilious to paint some of his most famous watercolours. The text was to be based on the book 'Downland Man' by H.J. Massingham. Ravilious was appointed a war artist and did not have the time to create the lithographs so that the book could be published. He was attached to an RAF squadron in Iceland and flew a search and rescue mission. His plane did not return. The book was presumed lost."

PLAN YOUR VISIT:

WILTSHIRE MUSEUM

41 Long St, Devizes SN10 1NS »wiltshiremuseum.org.uk

DAVID RECOMMENDS: This autumn, the Wiltshire Museum has a major exhibition - Eric Ravilious: Downland Man. An exhibition exploring for the first time, Eric Ravilious’s (1903-1942) fascination for the chalk downlands of Wiltshire and Sussex. The museum is borrowing over 20 artworks from major National Museums to bring an international standard art exhibition to the County. A range of evocative watercolours have been lent by the Tate, V&A, the Imperial War Museum, British Museum, National Museum of Wales and the prestigious Towner Art Gallery in Eastbourne, as well as private lenders, to secure a significant range of evocative watercolours for the display. Central to the exhibition are Ravilious’s best-loved watercolours of chalk figures, which were made in 1939 in preparation for a children’s book, Downland Man. The book was never completed, and for many years the prototype or ‘dummy’ made by Ravilious was believed lost. When it resurfaced in 2012 this precious relic was bought at auction by Wiltshire Museum. Although never published, it contains delicate pencil drawings of chalk hill figures, ancient monuments and prehistoric earthworks in Wiltshire. The exhibition is masterminded by guest curator, James Russell, who created the successful Ravilious exhibition at the Dulwich Picture Gallery in 2015. He has also written an illustrated catalogue to accompany this exhibition.