New Collecting Narratives: Birmingham Museums' Italian Renaissance and Baroque Decorative Arts Collections

伯明翰的意大利文艺复兴和巴洛克装饰艺术收藏品，包括陶瓷、玻璃、纺织品、家具和金属制品，是伯明翰首批获得的藏品之一，并在1885年伯明翰博物馆和美术馆(BMAG)开幕时在专门的展览中展出。这些材料可以追溯到15-17世纪，主要是由BMAG的第一位馆长惠特沃斯·沃利斯在两次意大利研究旅行中获得的，或者是从南肯辛顿博物馆的第一位策展人查尔斯·罗宾逊那里获得的。这些艺术品显然是从意大利19世纪最重要的文艺复兴时期艺术品交易商那里购买的，其中包括斯特凡诺·巴迪尼和朱塞佩·塞尔瓦多里，他们向世界各地的主要机构出售艺术品。初步研究表明，这些材料不仅来自佛罗伦萨，还来自罗马、米兰、威尼斯等。尽管这些藏品具有明显的潜力，但自购买以来，人们一直没有对其进行任何深入的研究，其意义也很少被发掘。相比之下，20世纪中叶购买的意大利巴洛克绘画和雕塑是一个项目的重点，该项目通过艺术基金和维夫玛基金会资助的策展培训生，与国家美术馆合作，在BMAG研究和重新展示巴洛克画廊。随着BMAG准备进行大规模翻新和重新展示，更深入地研究相关的装饰艺术收藏，并充分揭示它们与其他藏品的意义和联系是至关重要的。因此，该项目是及时和原创的，结果直接提供给计划中的新显示器。合作安排将使博士生能够受益于策展人，他们对个别物品和藏品本身有详细的了解，以及意大利艺术(包括档案研究)和19世纪陈列史和英意艺术关系方面的专家的学术指导。

Birmingham's Italian Renaissance and Baroque decorative art collection, comprising ceramics, glass, textiles, furniture and metalwork, was among the first to be acquired for the city and was exhibited in a dedicated display when Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery (BMAG) opened in 1885. Dating from the 15th-17th centuries, this material was acquired largely either by the BMAG's first director, Whitworth Wallis, during two research trips to Italy, or from the South Kensington Museum's first curator, Charles Robinson. These objects were apparently purchased from Italy's most important 19th-century dealers of Renaissance art including Stefano Bardini and Giuseppe Salvadori, who sold to major institutions across the world. Initial research suggests that material was acquired not only from Florence but from Rome, Milan, Venice, etc.Despite its obvious potential, this collection has not been studied in any depth since its purchase and its significance is little explored. In contrast, acquisitions made in the mid-20th century of Italian Baroque painting and sculpture were the focus of a project to research and redisplay the Baroque galleries at BMAG in partnership with the National Gallery through a curatorial traineeship funded by the Art Fund and the Vivmar Foundation. As BMAG prepares for a major refurbishment and redisplay, it is crucial that the related holdings of decorative art are researched in greater depth, and their significance and connections to other collections fully revealed. The project is therefore timely and original with results feeding directly into planned new displays. The collaborative arrangement will allow the PhD student to benefit from access to curators who have detailed knowledge of individual objects and of the collection itself, as well as from academic supervision by experts in Italian art (including archival research) and in 19th-century display histories and Anglo-Italian artistic relations.