Stephanie Holt, Natural History Museum
The British Museum’s Enlightenment Gallery is a whirlwind tour through the British Enlightenment, taking in objects of collection, science, art, and and the thinkers who defined the period’s intellectual achievements. The specimens within the collection, however, are not all owned by the British Museum, and many objects within the gallery are on loan from various institutions, including my own, the Natural History Museum.
An object on display within any exhibition is at an elevated risk of degradation, whether that is through light, jostling, vibration as people walk past cabinets, heat and humidity, or pest attack. And, of course, the risk of vandalism or theft is ever-present. This is all taken into account within modern exhibition design; well-made cabinets and digital monitoring all help to ensure the safety of specimens. However, regular hands-on inspection is the only way to be certain that objects are not degrading. Consequently, the Enlightenment Gallery is closed to the public two days a year for object inspection, and museums send curators to open the cabinets, and check on-loan specimens.
This year, due to the Curious Travellers project’s work on Thomas Pennant’s natural history collections, I was invited along to view the Pennant specimens on display in this collection. It has been several years since I was last in this gallery as a visitor, and I was surprised that I had forgotten just how much Pennant material is on view.
The exhibition is on display in one of the oldest parts of the Museum, the King’s Library (originally designed for King George III). As a result of the eighteenth-century style cabinetry, it takes more of a ‘cabinet of curiosities’ approach than one might find elsewhere in the museum. Specimens are displayed much as they might have been during the Enlightenment itself, albeit with modern interpretation addressing the important questions this collection raises regarding Eurocentricity within history, colonialism, and concepts of anti-slavery.
The first section of the gallery is devoted to the natural world, and specimens from Sir Hans Sloane, Sir Joseph Banks, and many others sit side-by-side with Pennant material.
Pennant’s specimens are spread across several of the cabinets, and his contribution is surprisingly extensive. The material primarily consists of fossil and mineral objects, including fossil fish, a collection of graptolites, trilobites, a bear jaw, and coal fossils, as well as samples of rare minerals. Each specimen was removed from the cabinets, carefully checked, photographed and recorded, with additional photographs and notes taken by me to feed back into the Curious Travellers Project.
Alongside the specimens in the fossil cabinet also sits the Pennant Wedgewood cameo medallion, a fine piece depicting the naturalist in blue jasperware. The piece was produced as part of Wedgewood’s ‘Modern Worthies’ series produced between 1775-1800 which aligns with the dates given in the British Museum’s catalogue. However, the ‘Wedgewood and Bentely’ stamp on the reverse of the cameo suggests that it was produced relatively early on in this series, dating from 1769-1780 when Josiah Wedgewood was working with Thomas Bentley.[1]
Some of the specimens displayed in the gallery can also be traced to Pennant’s publications and manuscripts, with illustrations clearly showing the specimens in hand. One of the best examples here is the Megalodon tooth, illustrated in Pennant’s ‘Fossils’ held as NLW MS 2556E by the National Library of Wales. Consequently, these objects — alongside the rest of the Pennant collection at the Natural History Museum — represent an important connection between Pennant’s natural history studies, his publications, and the art that was generated for them.
Overall, getting to experience the Enlightenment Gallery while closed, and working with our curators to ensure the conservation and care of these important Pennant specimens (not to mention those belonging to other notable 18th century naturalists) was an incredible privilege, and one which continues to add to our investigations of Pennant’s studies in natural history.
[1] https://www.potteriesauctions.com/news/a-guide-to-wedgwood-pottery-markings and https://fineart-restoration.co.uk/news/identifying-wedgwood-makers-marks-and-dates/