Editor’s Note: This piece is brought to you by Rhiannon Wallace, an Archaeological Officer with a Master’s in Classics from the University of Liverpool. Rhiannon has previously volunteered with the Tabley House Collection and has worked with the World Museum in Liverpool.
For thousands of years art, whether it be in the form of paintings, sculptures, literature, or architecture, has been beholden to a class of people that have typically ranked in the highest percentile of wealth. Art has always had a price, and if you could not afford it, you were not privy to it. But that has all begun to change in the last hundred years or so. The shift from private to public collections has become not just apparent, but relatively common practice, and for good reason. Heritage, in this sense, has been reclaimed by the people, for the people.
The Arts and Education
In the rural landscape of Cheshire, next to the likes of Tatton Park and Arley Hall, lies a small stately home that used to own grounds and gardens that would rival the likes of its neighbours. Tabley House in Knutsford was one of the great houses of its time. The current house was built in 1761 with Palladian architecture reflecting the influence of Classical Antiquity during the 18th Century. The Leicester family, known as the Leicester Warren from the late 19th Century, were the owners of the Estate until the death of Lt. Col. John Leicester Warren in 1975, and the collection is now primarily under the management of the University of Manchester.
With the 250th anniversary of the birth of contemporary artist J.M.W. Turner, the House has prepared the display of several paintings by the artist, who enjoyed a stay at Tabley during the year 1809, and was close friends with his patron and the then head of the household, Sir John Fleming Leicester. Original sketches, oil paintings, and watercolours have been brought out for display so that people might better enjoy the works of Turner and gain an understanding into his perspective of the grandeur of the house and grounds. A firm belief that the two shared was in the necessity for art to be shared and enjoyed by all and for the founding of a national gallery. Sir John Fleming Leicester had created his own small gallery in Mayfair as a means of sharing the collection he had curated with the high society of London. But this privatized collection was not enough for Turner. Upon his death, Turner requested that his entire collection of art be bequeathed to the nation.
This belief that art and culture should be accessible to everyone is a pertinent discussion even in today’s society. Art was once a medium that was used to reflect a person’s wealth and status, but as the divide between the privileged and the common people lessened with the breakdown of an aristocratic society, so too did the exclusivity of art. With this basic access to paintings, architecture and literature provided, everyone was given the same opportunity to enjoy, be educated by, and express their opinions on all manner of important topics.
In a world where the arts were once limited to an exclusive class of people, public access to them reminds us how far we have come as a society in ensuring that everyone is part of the conversation. It provides us with a reminder that our opportunities are no longer limited by a select few whose financial and societal status deems them more important than others and more deserving of the ‘finer things’. Institutions such as museums, galleries and heritage sites have become places that encourage cultural understanding, embrace diversities, and offer education on the significance of such topics.
Tabley’s impressive exhibitions offer more than just an insight via a display board; they offer true education on the subject matter through the medium of art and offer up the opportunity for people to connect with both the varying themes of Turner’s work and the societal themes of the period. Varying discussions on class and opportunities, travel and trends; all topics can be depicted within the artwork displayed around the house. This does not just apply to Turner. By opening the doors to a once-private collection, the volunteers at Tabley have not only curated an environment in which people can learn, they have also fostered a culture of inspiration that has helped connect visitors to their local history.
With the decline of aristocracy and large family estates, many collections were often donated to museums or trusts rather then passed down for family members to inherit. These institutions have the time and resources to properly preserve and maintain these collections and ensure they receive the level of care they were made for. The Ince Blundell Collection, donated by Sir Joseph Weld in 1959, is another prime example of this.
The transference of these artefacts from private to public hands is a huge victory for the general public. These items, that had been hidden away and enjoyed by so few for so long, can now be presented to the rest of the world. Yet, it is the responsibility of these heritage sites and institutions to ensure that these collections are indeed seen and enjoyed by people, and not simply left in storage for decades with the possibility of being unregistered or undocumented. Whilst many sites have adopted a successful approach of rotating displays to generate continued interest, the use of exhibitions in promoting a particular theme or topic through the medium of art has become a successful means of generating interest within different groups of society and ensuring widespread engagement and discussion. The Return of the Gods exhibition at the World Museum in Liverpool highlighted this. After spending potentially over 200 years in large family estates or possibly in storage, National museums Liverpool created an exhibition to showcase over 100 pieces of a previously private family collection, as a means of teaching the public about the Ancient Roman Pantheon of Gods and Goddesses.
Based on the Ince Blundell Collection, the exhibition aimed to educate people on Roman deities and introduce them to daily life within the confines of a Roman Villa under various Emperors. Such exhibitions are obviously built to educate. More importantly, however, they are built to inspire and to reflect on the political, religious, and personal decisions of societies long-past. Having visited the Manchester Museum when I was younger, I was astounded to see a board game on display that dated back to Antiquity, one that was not too dissimilar to the one’s we play today. Not only does this give us an insight into a civilisation’s past, but it also allows us to reflect upon the individual daily lives of the time and compare it to our own. Exhibitions can challenge us to think in novel ways, explore new cultures, and encourage us to participate in discussions on topics that have had a profound effect on the way in which we live our own lives today. Beyond this, they are also carefully curated safe spaces for people to wonder through, sit and contemplate and enjoy at their own pace. It is in such spaces that a person has the time to reflect on the society they have inherited and where they find themselves today. For this reason, public displays and exhibitions are crucial to generating a solid sense of ‘public’.
Preservation
Since 1980, the government has passed several amendments to the National Heritage Act to ensure that heritage institutions would be financially supported in almost all areas necessary to house and maintain a public collection. These laws mean that museums and galleries are provided loans and grants from the government in order to maintain, preserve, and display objects that would be of public interest, particularly those related to British history and culture. But they must be within the public interest. If these sites lost their public favour, they would not receive the loans required to care for them, and pieces of our history would suddenly be at risk of being lost.
The 1980 Act ensured the development of the National Heritage Memorial Fund which financially aids the acquisition, maintenance, preservation, conservation and display of museum held artefacts, buildings, land and other aspects of historical interest. It ensures that public collections are well cared for whilst also guaranteeing that public interest is at the helm of displays and exhibitions.
Museums and heritage sites are no longer concerned with only preserving the past, they are also home to the now. Displays grounded on contemporary – often socio-political – conversations can be found nationwide and work to engage the public with the wider concepts surrounding art and artefacts. Discussions on race, gender, climate change, sexuality, and the current political climate are being encouraged every day by the creation of exhibitions that are only made possible by the support of both the public and the government. Support that is only offered to public collections, not private.
Behind Closed Doors
To properly evaluate if the benefits of public institutions for art and culture outweigh these private collections, we must understand the potential benefits of private collections. Firstly, many private collectors do loan to galleries or museums. Sometimes their donations are an entire collection for a featured exhibition, other times it is one or two pieces to partake in a larger display. But these loans are exactly that: they’re temporary. This means that only a select amount of people will be able to visit and enjoy these pieces during the short timeframe they are being showcased.
In terms of preservation, private collectors are not beholden to the law in the same way that museums and heritage institutes are. They have no legal requirement to maintain a level of care for the artefacts and art that they own. Having said that, there are further incentives to ensure that they do. One being legitimacy: if a collector is known for destroying, damaging, or even dismissing any form of care, they are not likely to be sold to or bought from again. The collector’s community are less likely trust this individual to properly maintain such highly regarded art. Most collectors, it can be assumed, hold on to such collections out of joy and love for the subject they represent or the art themselves or even their creator. As a result, conservation and daily care would be a natural part of taking care of them.
Lastly, and perhaps more obviously, there is a monetary incentive. A piece of art, no matter it’s form, will always be of a higher value if it has been looked after and preserved to the best degree. But without laws and policies enacted, such as the National Heritage Act of 1983, there is no guarantee that a private collector can and will effectively preserve the artefacts that lie in their possession. This could effectively lead to a devastating loss of pieces of history and culture.
Final Thoughts
So why is this conversation important? It comes down to this: access to art should not be defined by one’s wealth. Having public institutions that can hold large collections and offer the opportunity for everyone to visit and enjoy these pieces of history is essential to ensure the memory of these cultures are preserved and to create a space in which people feel both welcome and encouraged to pursue an interest in their history, local or otherwise. We are no longer a society restricted by our wealth, or lack thereof, and this sentiment is often reflected in the art and artefacts on display. They do not need to cater to the upper levels of an aristocratic society and so have become more diverse, engaging people from all backgrounds. This shift in societal norms has ensured that public exhibitions have become a public good and that the arts are enjoyed by the many, not the few.