New Galleries at Norwich Museum
Fruit Bowl, Carol McNicoll, 1983
Two new decorative arts galleries open at Norwich Castle Museum in January. The museum, housed in an imposing Norman castle, has an extensive collection of costume, textiles, jewellery and ceramics – including the world’s largest collection of ceramic teapots in the Twining Gallery.
The new spaces give visitors a chance to see collection highlights in a series of up-dated, informative and thought-provoking displays. The Arts of Living gallery tells the story of 600 years of art and design from medieval wood carvings and Jacobean embroidery through to Chris Knight’s silver and aluminium tea set made in 2005. The idea is to show visitors how people lived and decorated both their houses and themselves over the centuries. There’s a special focus on local industry – Norwich was one of England’s most important cities until the 18th century and was consequently an centre of production, making silver and stained glass from the medieval period onwards. It was also an important weaving centre, particularly famous from the late 18th century onwards for its woven shawls, popular among Regency fashionistas who couldn’t afford the expensive Kashmiri originals. Several examples of these are on display here. The gallery is brought up to date with a good selection of modern and contemporary crafts, including jewellery by David Watkins and ceramics by Carol McNicoll.
The second gallery, Treasure, Trade and the Exotic, goes further afield, looking beyond the British Isles to the ‘curiosities’ bought back to Norfolk by collectors and traders. The items reflect the English fascination with exotic objects from the Far East – a vague, but glamorous geographical entity made up of China, Japan, India and the Spice Islands – and their love of rare and unusual materials. Look out in particular for the wonderfully over-the-top 17th-century cup made from a queen conch set in an enamel stand and the more restrained, but equally dramatic, Japanese stoneware sake bottle.
www.museums.norfolk.gov.uk
