Hidden treasures: developing skills and confidence in collections
Collections are at the heart of museum work. By investing in the documentation and display of Napoleonic coins, the team at Brodick Castle on the Isle of Arran have gained new expertise and strengthened their connections with other heritage organisations.
In this case study Senior Curator Sarah Beattie shares how this project has developed the skills and confidence of curatorial and property staff at the National Trust for Scotland.
This project was funded by Museums Galleries Scotland.
In brief
- Staff at Brodick Castle aimed to conserve and improve access to their Napoleonic coin collection by developing a dedicated display case.
- Creating the display required careful planning and a range of specialist skills.
- The project furthered the team’s knowledge of their collections and fostered closer ties to several heritage organisations.
Background
The purpose of the project was to improve the storage, condition, and access, physical and intellectual, to a small but very significant collection of Napoleonic coins and medals at Brodick Castle, which belonged to Princess Marie of Baden.
This is the first time that this collection has ever been displayed, allowing us to explore Princess Marie’s story in more detail, looking in particular at her life in Scotland and relationship with Napoléon.
We are so grateful for the support of Museums Galleries Scotland in enabling us to undertake this work to improve the condition and access of our most significant numismatic collection. Whilst it did not go exactly to plan, in part due to the impact of a global pandemic in the middle of it, this project has provided so much learning internally, upskilling and curatorial and property staff, and allowing us to display this fascinating collection to the public for the first time.
Successes
- The entire collection of 720 items was condition assessed remotely using high resolution digital images by a metal conservator.
- The cataloguing of the collection has given us important basic information about each item, highlighted existing research and the location of similar items in other collections, and helped us to create links with external numismatic specialists.
- The new interpretation provides better access to the collection for visitors and is designed to provide different levels of interpretation for different audiences depending on their interests.
Challenges
- Changing costs: The rarity and significance of the medal collection required a much higher security specification for the case than initially anticipated, which essentially doubled the cost of materials and increased the manufacturing and design fees.
- Surveying Challenges: The higher security case also weighed more than anticipated – this caused a major issue with the flooring in the castle and there were questions whether it would support the weight. Additional building survey work was required, increasing the cost of the project, and causing delays to the installation.
- Supplier Challenges: One of our specialist contractors was unable to work with us due to ill-health, and identifying a replacement was a long and difficult process because of the specialist nature of the work. We had to take a lot of work in-house, which whilst reducing budget, placed additional pressure on NTS staff, and caused further delays.
Impact
- Part of this unique collection is now being publicly displayed for the first time, telling new stories about Scotland’s European connections during the Napoleonic period.
- The animation we developed as part of the display helps us to make the items more accessible, particularly to a family audience, who may have initially perceived the numismatic collection to be somewhat dry.
- We have strengthened our links with existing research partners such as National Museums Scotland and created new connections with other organisations, particularly the coin curator at The Hunterian Museum at the University of Glasgow. These relationships have influenced how we approach and care for our numismatic collections and provided invaluable learning for our collections team.
- The condition assessment of the collection has given us an overview of each item’s current condition and flagged any items that may need conservation in future. While the restorage of the collection will help to prevent any further deterioration or damage in future.
Guidance for museums and galleries
- It can be very difficult ‘breaking in to’ a particular area of expertise. In hindsight, we should have spent longer before the project was funded cultivating relationships with numismatic experts and publicising the collection and the project plans. This would have given us a more robust network and we would, hopefully, have been able to appoint a cataloguer much more quickly.
- We hugely underestimated the staff time that would be involved ‘behind the scenes’, particularly working with a collection of 700+ items. In hindsight, it would have been more achievable within in the timescale if we had budgeted for additional staff capacity for some of the tasks.
Additional information
