For
the first term essay, I ended up choosing an object that I had been enamoured
with since I first saw it; one of a pair of Chinese models called the Chinese
Rock Gardens housed in the Museum of Childhood. I had first visited the museum in
my last year at university and they had immediately caught my attention. The
models are quite large and intricately decorated with luxurious materials such
as ivory, mother of pearl and precious metals. What interested me was why they
were in the Museum of Childhood in the first place; They looked very much out
of character for the museum as highly decorative, delicate objects that certainly
did not look like they were meant to be ‘played with’. The label contained very
little information on the objects too, only disclosing that they were from
Canton in China from 1780-1800, and that legend has it that they had been
headed to the Empress Josephine from the Emperor Jiaqing. But I found this to
be a limited story, and sought to draw out more from the object itself.
The collections manager
at the Museum of Childhood, Catherine Howell, shared the file for The Chinese
Rock Gardens, also called The Paradises, which held some of the previous
research into the objects. Most of the contents was a research project by Kate
Hay, curator in the Furniture department at the V&A. She revealed that the
objects originally came from the India Museum, before moving to the South
Kensington Museum (later renamed the Victoria & Albert Museum), and then
the Bethnal Green Museum (now the Museum of Childhood). It also uncovered that
the Chinese Rock Gardens had a sibling, which no longer was displayed at the
V&A. A third Paradise was ‘in storage’, although later it was realised to
be on display at the Sunderland Museum and Winter Gardens, depicting a Daoist
Temple. It became apparent that these models had a far more interesting story
than the label gave it credit for, and so I decided that the objective of my
essay was to complicate, and hopefully rejuvenate, their given narrative.
I wanted to
explore three aspects of the Paradises: Firstly, I researched a little more
about Canton and the carvers who might have made the object. I also wanted to
find out the credibility of the story of Empress Josephine that was placed as
such an important part of the object; Secondly, I contacted the East Asian
department to see if there was another object to compare it to. Malcolm
McNeill, a curator from the department showed me an ivory Summer Palace in storage
at the V&A. It highlighted that the Paradises, although beautiful, was not
considered exquisite and so therefore in its design and material seemed to have
other motives beyond being impressive and exotic curios. Malcolm also suggested
that the individual Paradise I had chosen could be linked to the Daoist story
of The Peach Blossom Spring, which became an important part of the research for
the second chapter.
The
last chapter, which for me turned out to be the most interesting part of the
process, focused on the movement of the Paradises from different locations and
how the methods of display pushed certain agendas onto the models. The India
Museum employed the Paradises in 1837, much like the infamous Tipu’s Tiger – as
an exotic curiosity of the Far East, The Paradises were a spectacular display
of a land and a race from a far off land. The South Kensington perhaps slightly
improved their use, as in the 1880s, the museum was mainly used as an education
tool for Design students, where The Paradises were part of a growing Oriental
Section. However, it could still be questioned whether the models in both these
institutions ever had their own agency, as they were always part of an impressive
spectacle of British imperial power.
The
Paradises came to the Bethnal Green Museum in the 1930s. The development
towards becoming the Museum of Childhood was already well under way by this
time under the director, Arthur Sabin. The conclusion I came to was that within
this space, the Paradises have been able to fulfil its role as a storyteller in
itself, without the overpowering of the legend attached to the models. Under a
roof containing many objects from around the world, The Paradises are there to
inspire, regardless of its slightly course making, and its flashy Chinoiserie
style, it is not its exotic nature that is most important in the Museum of
Childhood. The Paradises are instead, left to be explored by an audience who
have the ability to draw out its most significant feature – a story of wonder,
a playground for imagination uninhibited by the boundaries of society and age.
All photographs from the V&A Search the Collections website, accessed here.
