It\u2019s a sort of scrapbook. I always find when I\u2019m looking at them \u2013 and dresses are the same \u2013 I\u2019m inside them, looking at the seams, the labels. And I feel that\u2019s what curators should do, in trying to tell the story. We\u2019ve got a huge collection of about 30,000 items, including quilts, tapestries and embroideries, never mind the dress collection.<\/span><\/p>\n I get many offers a week of donations, and that\u2019s a very big part of my job. In March 2021 I received a card in beautiful handwriting from Doreen, a reader of Homes & Antiques<\/i>, who had read in \u2018The Month\u2019 about the quilt exhibition at The Bowes Museum. She had something she wanted me to solve \u2013 an immaculate North Country quilt from County Durham, only used by the owner once as a wedding quilt. <\/span><\/p>\n A Mr Peacock sold it to her 45 years ago, and he had been employed in a large country house, Wentworth Woodhouse. She thought it was dated to about 1775 and she wanted to give it to The Bowes Museum, so I went to see it and decided I\u2019d really like it. It\u2019s now the oldest quilt in the collection. <\/span><\/p>\n Doreen came up in August to see it on display in the glass cube in the textile gallery, adjacent to the quilt exhibition. It looks wonderful. For the museum it\u2019s more than just a quilt \u2013 it\u2019s a whole range of 18th-century printed cottons.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n There are a lot of questions you have to ask yourself when you\u2019re acquiring things \u2013 whether we\u2019ve got gaps in the collection, whether we are duplicating things and, most importantly, the provenance: who made it and where did they buy it? If it\u2019s a dress, who wore it, and are there any photos? It\u2019s a bit like being a detective \u2013 you\u2019ve got to have some history. All museums have their own collecting policies: ours is fairly regional but, having said that, it can change.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p><\/div> <\/section> Thanks to some Art Fund money, we now collect 20th and 21st-century French couture in the spirit of Jos\u00e9phine Bowes, our Parisian founder. Jos\u00e9phine went to the best dressmakers in Paris \u2013 we\u2019ve got her dressmaking bills \u2013 so it follows on nicely. <\/span><\/p>\n I felt that if we were collecting 21st-century costume, then there was an argument for collecting one or two contemporary quilt makers too, so I acquired some pieces by Leila Anderson and Pauline Burbidge. Since 2000 I\u2019ve collected strippy quilts \u2013 the simplest form of quilt \u2013 when it was highlighted we didn\u2019t have many, and also Sanderson Stars, stamped by Elizabeth Sanderson of Allenheads in the Pennines.<\/span><\/p>\n It\u2019s hard to choose a favourite from thousands of items, but I\u2019m very fond of the Empress Eug\u00e9nie pieces we have in the collection. Eug\u00e9nie was the wife of Napoleon III and the same age as Jos\u00e9phine Bowes. The collector acquired them in the 1950s from her brother, who\u2019d bought them from a Christie\u2019s sale after Eug\u00e9nie died in 1920. <\/span><\/p>\n The V&A subsequently borrowed Eug\u00e9nie\u2019s bodice of a ballgown with a reproduction skirt by Luca Costigliolo and had it in their \u2018Opera\u2019 exhibition, which went on a world tour \u2013 that was amazing.<\/span><\/p>\n Writing the catalogue foreword for our current quilt exhibition, I was reminded of how the collection has grown over the years. The trustees started to collect in the early 1900s and the first quilt came to us in 1930 \u2013 a beautiful little cot quilt of pure silk. I realised just how many wonderful opportunities I\u2019ve had. It was so cathartic and I ended up writing a whole chapter. I\u2019d forgotten so much that we\u2019d done with quilts over the years, so it\u2019s lovely to have a record. <\/span><\/p><\/body><\/html>\n By Rachel Nott Published: Tuesday, 11 January 2022 at 12:00 am What is your role at The Bowes Museum? I\u2019ve worked at The Bowes Museum for 40 years. I came from the Gallery of Costume in Manchester, but the quilts drew me in, and now I\u2019d say I\u2019m much more interested in textiles than fashion. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":243,"template":"","categories":[1],"acf":{"readingTimeMinutes":"4"},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/49\/2022\/01\/behind-the-scenes-at-the-bowes-museum-scaled.jpg",2560,1704,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/49\/2022\/01\/behind-the-scenes-at-the-bowes-museum-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/49\/2022\/01\/behind-the-scenes-at-the-bowes-museum-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/49\/2022\/01\/behind-the-scenes-at-the-bowes-museum-768x511.jpg",768,511,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/49\/2022\/01\/behind-the-scenes-at-the-bowes-museum-1024x681.jpg",800,532,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/49\/2022\/01\/behind-the-scenes-at-the-bowes-museum-1536x1022.jpg",1536,1022,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/49\/2022\/01\/behind-the-scenes-at-the-bowes-museum-2048x1363.jpg",2048,1363,true]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/homesantiques\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"By Rachel Nott Published: Tuesday, 11 January 2022 at 12:00 am What is your role at The Bowes Museum? I\u2019ve worked at The Bowes Museum for 40 years. I came from the Gallery of Costume in Manchester, but the quilts drew me in, and now I\u2019d say I\u2019m much more interested in textiles than fashion.…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/homesantiques\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/242"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/homesantiques\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/homesantiques\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/homesantiques\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/homesantiques\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/243"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/homesantiques\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=242"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/homesantiques\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=242"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\""Behind\"](\""https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/19\/2022\/01\/C52W4H_2-f88580a.jpg?quality=90&resize=1023%2C681"\" "\\"\"Bowes\\"")
<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>![\""Behind\"](\""https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/19\/2022\/01\/Quilt-_6-8847978.jpg?quality=90&resize=1024%2C1536"\" "\\"\"Quilt\\"")
<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>How do you decide which pieces to display?<\/h2>\n
You might also enjoy:<\/h4>\n
What can be found at The Bowes Museum?<\/h2>\n
What is your favourite item at The Bowes Museum?<\/h2>\n
![\""Behind\"](\""https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/19\/2022\/01\/Empress-Eugenie-dress_preview-f8c6cd8-e1641828876504.jpeg?quality=90&resize=1014%2C1185"\" "\\"\"Empress\\"")
<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div>
","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"