1. Cultures of Collecting
Galleons & Caravans:
Global Connections,
9 February 2011

2. Cultures of Collecting
Material culture as a discipline
What roles do objects play in collections?
Collected objects – Objects divested of their function? Luxury goods? Goods whose meaning changes? Exotic goods?
Personal collecting and status
Eighteenth-Century shift to legitimise collecting
Official / state collecting
Public / museum collecting
Inscriptions
Collections of knowledge
Collecting and Imperialism
Colonial collecting
  References:
Arjun Appadurai ed., The Social Life of Things (1986).
David Porter, Ideographia (2001).
Nicholas Thomas, ‘Licensed Curiosity: Cook’s Pacific Voyages’ in Elsner & Cardinal ed., The Cultures of Collecting (1994).
Craig Clunas, Superfluous Things: Material Culture and Social Status in Early Modern China (1991).
Pamela Crossley, Translucent Mirror: History and Identity in Qing Imperial Ideology (1999).
Richard Yeo, ‘Encyclopaedic Collectors: Ephraim Chambers and Sir Hans Sloane’ in Anderson et al. ed., Enlightening the British: Knowledge, Discovery and the Museum in the Eighteenth Century (2003).

3. Le Combat d’animaux (Tenture des Indes). c. 1723
Le Combat d’animaux (Tenture des Indes). c Oxford: Ashmolean Museum.
After set of drawings indicating the natural history of Brazil, presented to Louis XIV in Purchased by the Qianlong 乾隆 Emperor c Looted in the British attack on the Yuanmingyuan 圓明園, Beijing, in 1861 under Lord Elgin.

4. Photograph by Greg Villet.
Popular Science, June 1939.
Photograph by Greg Villet.
Life, 24 May 1954.

5. Frontispiece to Ole Worm’s (1588-1655) Museum Wormianium. 1655.

6. From James Cook, A Voyage Toward the South Pole and Around the World (London, 1777).

7. Section of the Guwan tu 古玩圖 handscroll displaying antique objects belonging to the Yongzheng 雍正 Emperor London: British Museum (PDF X01).

8. Album leaf from Taoci puce 陶瓷譜冊. Late Qianlong period, c. 1780-90
Album leaf from Taoci puce 陶瓷譜冊. Late Qianlong period, c Taipei: National Palace Museum.

9. Thomas Bruce, Seventh Earl of Elgin (1766-1841)
Thomas Bruce, Seventh Earl of Elgin ( ). British Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire between 1799 and 1803.
Parthenon (Elgin) Marbles. London: British Museum.

10. White porcelain bowl inscribed ‘Rucheng Family Collection’ 如城家藏
White porcelain bowl inscribed ‘Rucheng Family Collection’ 如城家藏. Dated London: British Museum (OA ). Possibly commissioned for collection of Zhao Xianyi 趙賢意 (js. 1595) of Dongyang County.

11. Section of Admonitions of the Court Instructress 女史箴圖, traditionally ascribed to Gu Kaizhi 顧愷之 (?345-?406). Probably 7th or 8th century. London: British Museum.

12. Inscribed: ‘Captured in Egypt by the British Army in 1801.’
Rosetta Stone. Dated 196 BC. London: British Museum.

13. Frontispiece to Ephraim Chambers’ (
Frontispiece to Ephraim Chambers’ (? ) Cyclopaedia: or an Universal Dictionary of Arts and Sciences…&c. London,

14. Plate from An account of the voyages undertaken by the order of His present Majesty for making discoveries in the Southern hemisphere, and successfully performed by Commodore Byron, Captain Wallis, Captain Carteret, and Captain Cook, in the Dolphin, the Swallow, and the Endeavour / drawn up from the journals which were kept by the several commanders, and from the papers of Joseph Banks, esq; by John Hawkesworth. (London : Printed for W. Strahan and T. Cadell, 1773) 3 v.

15. From James Cook, A Voyage Toward the South Pole and Around the World (London, 1777).

16. Le Combat d’animaux (Tenture des Indes). c. 1723
Le Combat d’animaux (Tenture des Indes). c Oxford: Ashmolean Museum.
After set of drawings indicating the natural history of Brazil, presented to Louis XIV in Purchased by the Qianlong 乾隆 Emperor c Looted in the British attack on the Yuanmingyuan 圓明園, Beijing, in 1861 under Lord Elgin.