What’s in our Drawers? Transforming a hidden collection

As many visitors to the Pitt Rivers Museum have discovered, you will certainly not be short of things to see. But did you know that some 270 drawers in the Court and Lower Gallery are currently being reimagined? In this transformational project, generously supported by The Clothworkers’ Foundation, a largely hidden collection will be made accessible to visitors and open up another exciting dimension to the rich ethnographic collections cared for by the Museum.

Many drawers are overcrowded, resulting in poor visibility of the collection and damage to the objects

At present, these drawers have been used as ‘overspill’ to house objects from the collection and have been added to over the years. With a collection as vast as the Pitt Rivers, it is easy to imagine how crowded these drawers have become. Not only has this resulted in some damage to the objects, it has also limited the accessibility of these objects to visitors.

These display drawers are contemporaneous to the Museum and, like the cabinets, form part of the well-known fabric of the museum often containing objects of the same ‘type’. Younger visitors enjoy pulling open the drawers and seeing what’s hidden inside, but the very action of opening the drawers currently risks further damage to the contents. Here lies the challenge: how do you go about updating these displays whilst working with historic display units? The answer comes in the form of a laser cutter and a lot of Plastazote foam!

Curating the Drawers

The first step in their transformation involves retrieving the drawer and selecting a group of objects to keep on display in the drawer, those that do not make the cut are then packed for storage. Like the larger display cabinets in the Museum the drawers contain a wide variety of objects that span the globe and present a unique curatorial challenge. Most of the drawers are far too full and so the project of redisplay gives us the opportunity to rationalise what we display in any one drawer. This can be difficult when some of the topics are as complex as ‘divination and religious objects from Africa’. Often these objects have complicated histories. Sometimes these are explained on old handwritten metal rimmed labels and so where possible we try to make these labels visible. The hand-written labels are not without their problems, often they contain old fashioned or even offensive terminology. Luckily objects in the Pitt Rivers Museum have often been donated in multiples of the same thing, by different donors. Aesthetically it is nice to group objects in odd numbers and sometimes it can be easy to discount objects on the fact that they may be in a bad condition and there is another example of the same thing which can be used. Again selecting objects which are from the same geographic area is a good rationale as is selecting similar objects from different regions to demonstrate the ingenuity of people from all over the world to make objects for the same function from the resources they have available to them. We have allocated a postcard sized space to accommodate a short explanatory label for each drawer, this also provides a challenge to write a short text interesting enough to aid the visitor in understanding what can be seen but brief enough to fit on a postcard and cover the diverse range of geographical areas and different cultures represented by the multiple objects displayed in a single drawer. Each week we look forward to discovering the contents of a drawer and are excited to see what lies in wait for us. 

Conserving the Drawers Contents

Rebeccas re-humidifying a plant fibre sample

The project has also allowed for remedial intervention to be carried out on some objects that have deteriorated or been damaged whilst stored in the drawers. Conservation treatment has ranged from re-bonding broken clay figurines, re-humidifying pineapple fibre textile samples, and carrying out tear repairs on a folding paper scene. The sheer variety of conservation challenges has been a wonderful opportunity to get to know objects that have remained largely unseen for a number of years. Not only does this ensure that objects are stabilised, it also means that they can be discovered anew by both staff and visitors.

The plant fibre sample before (above) and after (below) conservation treatment

Redisplaying the Drawers

Another exciting aspect of this project has allowed for the development of a technique which allows custom-made Plastazote trays to be created. The new object layouts are photographed, and outlines produced in Adobe Illustrator, before being programmed into the museum’s laser cutter. 

Preparing the Plastazote foam for laser cutting

The result? A foam tray that can be neatly slotted into the drawer. With a cushioning barrier now surrounding each object, a much safer and more attractive display has been achieved.

To date, 56 drawers have been totally transformed. And a huge 2061 individual objects have been processed! So, once we are able to return to the museum why not have a look in our drawers? You never know what you might discover . . . 

The transformed drawer layouts

Interested in following this project? The conservation department post regular updates about the ‘What’s in our Drawers?’ project and many other intriguing finds through their Instagram account. Just search for @pittriversmuseumconservation

Rebecca Plumbe (conservation intern) and Faye Belsey (Deputy Head of Collections)

An Egg at Easter

In 1971 the book ‘An Egg at Easter’ was published. It was the result of years of research and collecting by the folklorist Venetia Newall who won the Chicago Folklore prize for it. It is a wonderful volume detailing the traditions and meanings behind decorating eggs. 

The Pitt Rivers Museum has a significant collection of decorated eggs, mostly from Eastern Europe and a selection can be seen on display in the Lower Gallery. We were able to add to the collection of decorated Easter eggs in 2019 when John Newall, Venetia's husband contacted the Museum offering to donate Venetia’s collection to the Pitt Rivers Museum. Venetia Newall sadly died in 2017 but lived an interesting life. She researched and wrote on witchcraft and magic, folklore of birds and beasts and travelled extensively across Europe, America and Asia. In 1981 she founded the International Folklore Review and served as President and Vice President of the Folklore Society of England. Her contributions in this field cannot be underestimated. It is very fitting that her egg collection has found a home at the Pitt Rivers. As well as global collections the Museum has an eclectic holding of objects associated with folklore, magic and ritual. Several prominent figures in the history of the Pitt Rivers Museum served as presidents of the Folklore society including Henry Balfour, first curator of the Museum and Pitt Rivers himself.

On a very hot summer’s day in 2019 we visited John Newall in London to view Venetia’s collection. We entered a sunny room with a cabinet containing many hundreds of eggs. The room also had framed molas from the San Blas Islands of Panama, and other pieces of art from around the world reflecting Venetia and John’s love of travel and collecting. Some of the eggs had a pungent smell, not all had been blown before being decorated. John recalled to us how Venetia’s egg collection had begun, on a trip to Prague for Easter in 1959:

“…To our amazement, the two women shown in the photo were confidently offering decorated eggs for sale in Wenceslas Square, right in the middle of the city. That was during the still ultra hard-line period, when private trade was absolutely not on. Anyway, we bought a few of their beautifully hand-decorated eggs, and that was the start of Venetia’s collection.”

Eggs have a long tradition of being decorated. They symbolise life, renewal and rebirth both in pagan times and for many Christians particularly during Easter. After having abstained from eating sweets and treats for lent children often indulge in chocolate eggs as a reward and chicken and duck eggs often featured during Easter feasts, though not so much today. Traditionally hard boiled eggs were dyed bright colours and used in Easter games such as egg rolling. In Christianity the rolling of the eggs down a hill symbolises the rolling away of the stones from Christ's tomb associated with his resurrection. The eggs in Venetia's collection show various methods of decoration. Traditional Ukrainian eggs were decorated using batik (wax resist) technique and included Christian designs: churches, crosses and fish for example and pagan designs representing symbols of fertility and creation: ears of wheat, tree of life, emblems of the sun. 

The British Museum have also acquired some of Venetia Newall’s vast collection. Some of the more interesting eggs were made by diaspora groups living away from home such as those made by the German wife of a Ukrainian living in the UK and those made by a Slovakian Czech from New York.

We have yet to have accessioned and catalogued the eggs we have acquired but look forward to doing so soon. Venetia Newall was an inspiring figure, and as well as having a passion for collecting and researching folklore traditions she cared very much for human rights and was a member of the Wolfenden Society, where she helped to facilitate reform of laws regarding LBGT rights in the UK. It really is a great honour for the Museum to have become custodian of the fantastic collection of decorated eggs she had got so much enjoyment from.  

Faye Belsey

Deputy head of Collections