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Description: | The Designated collection is world wide with particular strengths in China, Japan, India, Oceania, Pacific, Latin America and South America; the associated data of provenance, use and context is particularly important.
The Chinese collection consists of over 3000 items including fine arts, embroidered textiles and ceramics relating to daily life with opium and tobacco pipes, jade ear-scoops, lamps, lacquered pillows, card and chess games, fans, combs, pigeon whistles, whistling arrows, ivory, export ceramics from Iraq and Sarawak (Malaysia), writing brushes and accessories, chop-sticks, knives, Chinese model boats and a model of an endless chain water irrigation system, metalwork and jewellery. There is an important photographic archive of 1000 photographs of China mainly taken by Laver between 1905 and 1908 of the unrest during the fall of the Manchu dynasty.
The Indian collections are over 15,000 items covering most aspects of daily life including bronzes, paintings, carvings, ritual objects of figures of deities, temple lamps, rosaries, masks, jewellery, Sikh war-quoits, tools, agricultural and domestic equipment; toys, dolls, kites, fans, playing cards, boat models and an internationally important collection of textiles, including a number of complete costumes relating to Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist and Sikh communities.
Also held is the world's most important collection of Naga artefacts from Assam; 5,000 items of all aspects of Naga material culture collected by J Hutton and J Mills in the early 20th century supported by a large photographic archive and several unique early field recordings on wax cylinders.
The Japanese collection includes examples of everyday Japanese artefacts, samurai armour and a set of 54 Noh masks, a complete set from the North East of Japan, bought in Tokyo in the 1870s and all from the Edo period (1600-1867), with singular masks dating from the early 17th - early 19th Century. The wooden masks have cloth bags and some are by Deme Zekan of the early 17th century. Particular gifts are 58 Japanese model toys from J. Edge Partington in 1892, Basil Hall ChamberlainÃ's material of everyday artefacts, musical instruments, kites and several hundred religious items collected while Professor of Japanese and Philology in the Imperial University of Tokyo between1888 and 1908, and a commissioned collection from Revd J. Rousseau from the Ainu people of Hokkaido; John Lowe donated over 600 artefacts in 1996 of high aesthetic value and everyday objects bought to furnish his homes in Japan. Other important material includes portrait photographs of the Japanese ambassador and his delegation in Paris in the early 1860's.
The Forster Collection is one of the world's great collections of 18th-century Pacific art and material culture acquired by Reinhold Forster and his son George during Cook's second voyage from 1772 to 1775 and includes ornaments, clothing, utensils, weapons, and musical instruments from Tahiti, Tonga, Aotearoa (New Zealand), Rapa Nui (Easter Island), the Marquesas, Vanuatu, New Caledonia, and Tierra del Fuego.
The Forsters sent the collection to Oxford in 1776 along with a handwritten 'Catalogue of Curiosities'. The Tahiti material is represented by barkcloths, musical instruments, tools, weapons and utensils.
The Latin American collections are extensive and include the collections of:- Mrs Elsie McDougall of textiles, textile tools and photographs collected in Guatemala and Mexico from 1926; R.H. Thomas of pottery artefacts from Northern Peru, Southern Columbia and Ecuador and from Guyana made by Audrey Butt (Colson) and Peter Rivière. | Source: | Cornucopia - Discovering UK Collections | FAX: | +44 (0)1865 270 943 | Telephone: | +44 (0)1865 270 927 | Identifier: | oai:www.cornucopia.org.uk:4374 | Go to resource |
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