York Museums Trust Blog

This is a large, four storey, wooden doll’s house. I t was made for Phyllis Dulce Warwick in about 1895 when she was 8 years old.  The rooms are furnished with the original objects.

The doll’s house is wired for electricity and still has original carbon filament bulbs (very few real houses would have been lit by electricity in 1895).

The most interesting and unusual piece of furniture is the miniature Ice Chest.  On top there is a hinged lid revealing the space where the block of ice would be stored, the interior is painted grey to represent the metal lining the full-sized chest would have.  On the shelf in the cold compartment there is a miniature cooked chicken.  Ice Chests as a form of cold storage became popular in the late 19th Century.

Information by - Sarah Maultby

 YORCM : 1972.51

click for a better view

This is a domino-sized piece of soapstone engraved in reverse with the words “Julius Alexander’s salve for irritations”.

It is one of only 60 such stamps world-wide. Cosmetic branding was as important to the Romans as it is to us today. This stamp ensured that people knew they were getting ‘ the real McCoy ‘ and not some forgery.

It was found on the Mount by the Dickinsons - a farmer and his nephew who worked land on which the Mount School now stands. They worked very closely with local archaeologist Peter Wenham in collecting and plotting Roman objects from their land.

Their collection of artefacts now forms part of the archaeological collections at the Yorkshire Museum.

Information by - Andrew Morrison

YORYM 2006.2878

Icons are considered to be the Gospel in paint and Russians sometimes speak of an icon having been “written” because the same pisat’, писать word means to write and paint.

Icons are prepared today in the same meticulous fashion which has passed down through the centuries. They are painted in egg tempera on wood.

Our icon can be dated to the mid 1650s thanks to the back slats which prevent the panel warping as it dries out over time.

Info by Caroline

This is a good example of a typically “tourist” Italian leaf, mounted up on fine, imported Eastern (most likely Chinese) sticks. Visitors to the Bay of Naples – many of them on the Grand Tour – would buy these and take them home, in much the same way as tourists to Spain sometimes bring home those rather naff little fans made of plastic and nylon lace!

It is a carved ivory fan, with a fine skin leaf painted with three trompe l’oeil views from around the Bay of Naples, with two leaves of handwritten script placed between. On one, beneath the caption “Aria”, are words from the opera Orpheus and Euridice. The other leaf gives the name and address of the painter, Sign. Nicola Lanezno, and is dated Naples, 1779. The reverse of the leaf shows Vesuvius erupting.

info by Josie   (BA293)

This late Viking style sword has just been given to the Yorkshire Museum. It was found in the River Ouse at Cawood is one of the most significant swords ever found in North Yorkshire. Its design is a mixture of late Anglo-Scandinavian (Viking) and early medieval features and this gives it an exciting and interesting place in the development of sword design.

On either side of the blade there is an inscription made up of capital letters. They most likely represent initial letters of a number of Latin words that would make up a saying of some importance to the owner.

The sword was allocated to the Yorkshire Museum through the Government’s ‘Acceptance in Lieu’ programme whereby items considered to be national treasures are gifted to museums to offset some inheritance tax that would otherwise be due from the owner. This is the first such allocation that has ever been made to the Yorkshire Museum.

Described in the big book of swords as of “outstanding importance”. It is probably made by the same hand or ‘workshop’ as a near identical sword in the Oslo Museum which is dated to A.D. 1100.

We will be working with the Cawood Castle Garth local history group to discover more about the sword and its discovery.

Info. by - Andrew Morrison

YORYM : 2007.3086

This view of Kikham Abbey gateway by John Sell Cotman was painted in between the 17th and 20th July 1805 whilst he was staying at Brandsby Hall, near York.

Cotman is considered to be one of the finest watercolourists of the nineteenth century, and this work dates from a period of his greatest creativity.

The picture was presented to York Art Gallery by the National Art Collections Fund in 1955, as part of the Cook bequest.

Look out for an exhibition John Sell Cotman and his Contemporaries in the Little Gallery starting in February at York Art Gallery.

Alastair Smith

YORAG R1702

This little handbill has recently been added to the collection. The concert was part of the Beatles 2^nd UK tour, a tour which was to be headlined by the Americans Chris Montez and Tommy Roe. However, the Beatles’ single Please Please Me hit the top of the charts and by the time the Beatles came to York they were the headliners. It is right at the cusp of the outbreak of Beatlemania and illustrates the way in which the British came to dominate the 60s scene. The original booking form would have been at the bottom of the bill had it not been removed by an eager fan forty four years ago. One lady who went to see the Beatles at the Rialto said that it was a wonderful experience but, even though she was in the second row, she couldn’t hear the music for the screaming!