Squirrels on parade!

Ladies and gentlemen, apologies for the disgraceful lack of posts during 2015 but like all good squirrels, I felt the need to curl myself up into a little furry ball and sleep the year away.

And boy oh boy do I feel all the better for it :)
So without further ado, enjoy this veritable feast of beautiful squirrel images by artists old and new...

Kelly Vivanco

http://www.kellyvivanco.com/

Theodor Kittelsen

http://www.theodorkittelsen.no/en/

Molly Brett
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molly_Brett

Rene Cloke

http://cuteanimalart.blogspot.co.uk/2010/12/rene-cloke-1905-1995.html

https://uk.pinterest.com/lynnkatie90/rene-cloke/

Rene Cloke

Vintage Christmas card

Andrew Hutchinson

http://www.andrewhutchinson.co.uk/

Anne Patzke

http://trenchmaker.blogspot.co.uk/

Emily Martin

http://www.emilywinfieldmartin.com/

Vintage Russian postcard

Ray Shuell

http://rayshuell.blogspot.co.uk/

http://www.paintinfrance.eu/gallerynew.html

Arthur Rackham

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Rackham

http://arthur-rackham-society.org/

Margaret W. Tarrant

http://www.medici.co.uk/c/64/Margaret-Tarrant

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Tarrant

Gustaf Tenggren

http://www.gustaftenggren.com/tenggren/

Yuri Vasnetsov

http://allrus.me/soviet-russian-artist-yuri-vasnetsov/

Chiaki Okada

Brian Wildsmith

http://www.brianwildsmith.com/

Sophie Corrigan

http://www.sophiecorrigan.com/

Beatrix Potter

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beatrix_Potter

http://beatrixpottersociety.org.uk/

Celestino Piatti

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celestino_Piatti

David Gothard

http://www.davidgothard.com

Vintage book cover

Lady Red & Lord Grey on Riverside Books
By Mayfifth1935 Designs

https://www.facebook.com/Mayfifth1935Designs/

https://twitter.com/Mayfifth1935

Lady Red & Lord Grey on a Squirrel's Grand Tour

Also by Mayfifth1935 Designs

Our museum during the Great War

This post is a synopsis of a Behind the Scenes event I presented in September looking at a “snapshot” of Amgueddfa Cymru - National Museum Wales' working activities during the WWI period.

My research entailed scanning Annual Reports, scrap books, publication archives and photographic collections for the years 1914 to 1918 and picking  out interesting items of news concerning  staff and exhibitions.

However, the first thing I did was to warn everyone that in 1914 this is what we looked like….

 

We still existed of course, established by Royal Charter back in 1907 but without a finished building to call our own.

Therefore, during the years while construction of the building was in progress, administration was carried out in offices close by at Park Place and the Kingsway area while exhibitions were held in temporary galleries next door in City Hall.

 

I centred the staff news around three people:

Archibald H. Lee, the Museum Secretary, who saw active military service and was decorated with the Military Cross after fighting at Gaza. He returned to work after the war and remained Museum Secretary for 44 years, finally retiring in 1953. He appears in many photographs of special events and royal visits over the years.



Archibald H Lee

Cyril Mortimer Green, who was appointed as Botanical Assistant, but never took up his post. He held a Commission in the  3rd Royal Sussex Regiment, went abroad to fight and was killed on active military duty in November 1917. His death is all the more poignant because, not only did he never take up his position at the Museum, his brother Hugh Mortimer Green had also been killed on active duty back in 1915. 

Click  here [and scroll down] for more information on Cyril and his brother.

Eleanor Vachell, spirited and outstanding amateur botanist who stepped in to take charge of the botany collections, while Cyril Mortimer Green was absent on military duty. She did this, with the help of pupils from Cardiff High School for Girls, whilst also supporting the war effort as one of the ‘Committee Ladies of the Auxiliary Workers Territorial Forces Nursing Association’ at the hospital set up in Howard Gardens, working as both nurse and librarian.

 

Eleanor Vachell

Eleanor was the daughter of Charles Tanfield Vachell [1848-1914], he was secretary and president of  Cardiff Naturalists' Society for many years, instrumental in the creation of the Cardiff Municipal Museum and, a member of the National Museum Wales council for some years from 1908 onwards. Eleanor compiled, with her father, the Vachell herbarium that contains 6,705 dried specimens and is one of the most complete herbaria ever collected by a private individual. This is now held here at the museum along with a very large collection of their own personal library on British floras.

 

I also looked at the problems faced in the construction of the building due to a lack of basic materials that had been re-allocated for the war effort. The progress must have been excruciatingly slow and all material orders had to apply via license applications to The Ministry of Munitions and the Report for 1917/18 reports that work was suspended completely for a time…

Construction of the dome section

Unfortunately it has become necessary to suspend work on the New Building, and an agreement terminating the contract has been entered into with the builders, Messrs J. Willcock & Son. The roof had already been completed and the windows have been filled with oiled canvas so that the structure is now weather proof… Some of the rooms in the New Building are already in use for storage of specimens. NMW Annual Report p. 9

 

One of the most enjoyable parts of researching this talk was looking at the exhibitions that were held through the war years. War notwithstanding, the museum had an obligation to the public to carry on programming exhibitions and events. Here are just a few of the many exhibitions held at City Hall and for which we hold the original catalogues:

Turner’s Welsh Drawings

Open from Oct 26^th 1914 to Jan 30^th 1915 and visited by over 8,000 people

 Exhibition of Modern Belgian Art

Held in 1915 from March 17^th to April 15^th….visited by over 6,000 people.

 Exhibition of Topographical Prints and Engravings

An exhibition of Prints and Engravings of places in Wales was opened on July 27^th 1915 and will remain open until October 30^th… A catalogue, with technical and biographical notes , has been prepared by Mr Isaac Williams. The number of visitors to the exhibition up to the 30^th September was 7,600.

Lovett Collection of Toys

Mr Edward Lovett, of the Folklore Society, whose Collection of Dolls aroused such interest when on exhibition in the Temporary Museum two years ago, offered to lend his unique Collection of Children’s Toys and Playthings for exhibition… It had originally intended to close the exhibition on August 16^th 1915 but in view of the interest it aroused, and to give school children an opportunity of visiting it during the whole of their holidays, the date of closing was postponed to September 2^nd.
The total attendance was 21, 889.
 

Original material on display

I also found mention of a number of war related exhibitions held at City Hall but for which we do not hold catalogues…

 Exhibitions of Women’s War Work

A Ministry of Munitions exhibition of photographs illustrating women’s war work, aroused considerable interest during two weeks in February 1916

 Exhibition of Allied War Photographs

An Exhibition of Allied War Photographs was held in 1917 from August 4^th to 20^thand was visited by nearly 4000 people.

 British Battle Photographs [in colour]

An exhibition lent by the Ministry of Information. This was opened November, 1918. It closed on the 11^th December, and was visited by about 3,500 people.

I concluded by showing two other items held here in the Library that are connected with WWI. The first was volume of military portraits of soldiers from the Welsh Horse Yeomanry. This regiment did not exist before the Great War. It was formed in August 1914 under the administration of the Glamorgan Territorial Force Association and headquartered in Cardiff [Sophia Gardens]. The title page states that the album was presented to Alderman J. Robinson, who was Lord Mayor of Cardiff (1913–1914) and it was donated to the Library on the 27^th April 1932 by Councillor R. G. Robinson.

http://www.1914-1918.net/welshhorse.htm

 

 

 

The second item I showed comprised of three albums, possibly put together for promotional purposes for the Italian air craft manufacturer, Caproni. The factory was founded in 1908 [in Taliedo, near Milan] and during WWI, they developed a series of successful heavy bombers, used by the Italian, French, British and US air forces.

1.    Officine Caproni contains photographs of large Caproni factory spaces [interiors and exteriors]

2.    Aeroplani Caproni contains photographs of all manner of Caproni aeroplanes [many with machine guns attached]

3.    Smaller third album [blank cover] containing photographs of Caproni staff groups at work

This album also contains 5 typed sheets of paper listing the aeroplanes and giving all sorts of technical information.

Entries are accompanied with phrases like

·       Very useful in attacking infantry

·       Well armed with 2 - 4 machine guns

·       Purpose built for attacking enemy ships

 

These albums were donated to the Library on 15^th February 1926 by “Lord Treowen” [Major-General Ivor Herbert, 1st Lord Treowen] National Museum Wales Treasurer 1907-12, Vice President 1912-17, and President 1917-22

Further information on Caproni can be found via the following links:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giovanni_Battista_Caproni   
 
http://www.militaryfactory.com/aircraft/contractor.asp?thisCompany=Caproni     

The last item I showed was one of our scrapbooks covering the war years that contains newspaper articles concerning the museum. These in particular, paint a vivid picture of an exceptional and turbulent period in the history of Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales.

 

 

 

 

 

"Our Cats" by Harrison Weir [1889]

 

This is a very indulgent post as it is a well know fact amongst all who know me than I am a little [just a little mind you] cat MAD. Therefore I couldn't resist photographing this selection of wonderful and [in some cases] bizarre illustrations of cats from the book "Our Cats and all about them" written and illustrated by Harrison Weir in 1889. 

My personal favourites are the surreal disembodied heads, "Sylvie" [she of the magnificent moustaches] and the Russian cat who [in my opinion] has a most unsettling human expression.

 

 

Weir was a very interesting character; he was born in 1824 on May 5th [d.1906], and is known as "The Father of the Cat Fancy”. He organizied the first ever cat show in England, at The Crystal Palace, London in July 1871 where he and his brother served as judges. In 1887 he founded the National Cat Club and was its first President and Show Manager until his resignation in 1890. Our Cats was the first published pedigree cat book.

Weir was employed, for many years, as a draughtsman and engraver for the Illustrated London News as well as many other publications and in his lifetime he both wrote and illustrated other books such as The Poetry of Nature (1867), Every Day in the Country (1883) and Animal Studies, Old and New (1885). In 1845 he exhibited his first painting at the British Institution and during his career he was an occasional exhibitor at the Royal Academy.

He was a keen animal fancier, an experienced breeder of cats, carrier pigeons, and poultry and for thirty years often acted as a judge at the principal pigeon and poultry shows. In 1903 he wrote and illustrated the exhaustive book Our Poultry and All About Them.

More information on Harrison Weir can be found via the following links:

http://www.harrisonweir.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrison_Weir

http://www.nationalcatclub.co.uk/History.htm

 

 

 

 

This book was bequeathed to the Library back in May 1916 along with around 500 other books by the Welsh artist, champion of Wales’ cultural heritage and one of the founding fathers of Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales, Thomas Henry Thomas. Along with the books, Thomas also bequeathed his entire catalogue of prints, drawings and watercolours to the Museum.

More information on Thomas Henry Thomas here:

http://www.museumwales.ac.uk/rhagor/article/2035/

 

 

The illustration above appeares in the Chapter "Performing cats". Other chapters include, "Cats as tormentors", "Dead cats", "Fishing cats" and "Lovers of cats" [would you believe... Cardinal Richelieu?].

 

 

 

This book is available to view electronically via the following Project Gutenberg link:
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/35450/35450-h/35450-h.htm#Page_37

Biographical information on Harrison Weir taken from Wikipedia.

All photographs in this post taken by the author.