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William Hunter's World: The Art and Science of Eighteenth-Century Collecting book cover

1st Edition

William Hunter's World The Art and Science of Eighteenth-Century Collecting

Edited By E. Geoffrey Hancock, Nick Pearce, Mungo Campbell Copyright 2015
424 Pages
by Routledge

424 Pages
by Routledge

Despite William Hunter's stature as one of the most important collectors and men of science of the eighteenth century, and the fact that his collection is the foundation of Scotland's oldest public museum, The Hunterian, until now there has been no comprehensive examination in a single volume of all his collections in their diversity. This volume restores Hunter to a rightful position of... Read more
Contents: Foreword, David Gaimster; Introduction, Mungo Campbell. Part I William Hunter: Developing his Museum: The Great Windmill Street Anatomy School and Museum, Helen McCormack; Anatomy and the ’museum oeconomy’: William and John Hunter as collectors, Simon Chaplin. Part II William Hunter: Anatomy in Practice: William Hunter’s sources of pathological and anatomical specimens, with particular reference to obstetric subjects, Stuart W. McDonald and John W. Faithfull; ’An universal language’: William Hunter and the production of The Anatomy of the Human Gravid Uterus, Caroline Grigson; The anatomist and the artists: Hunter’s involvement, Anne Dulau Beveridge; William Hunter’s anatomical and pathological specimens, Stuart W. McDonald. Part III William Hunter: Collector: Animal specimens in William Hunter’s anatomical collection, Stuart W. McDonald and Margaret Reilly; William Hunter’s zoological collections, Margaret Reilly; The shaping role of Johann Christian Fabricius: William Hunter’s insect collection and entomology in 18th-century London, E. Geoffrey Hancock; Dr John Fothergill: significant donor, Starr Douglas; The mineral collection of William Hunter: assembly and function, John W. Faithfull; A collection without a catalogue: Captain John Laskey and the missing vertebrate fossils from the collection of William Hunter, Jeff Liston; Archaeological objects in William Hunter’s collection, Sally-Anne Coupar; William Hunter’s parade shield: a memento of Leonardo’s Milan?, Martin Kemp; Ethnographic treasures in the Hunterian from Cook’s voyages, Adrienne L. Kaeppler; ’At last in Dr Hunter’s library’: William Hunter’s Chinese collections, Nick Pearce; William Hunter’s numismatic books, Donal Bateson; The ’Hunterian orchard’: William Hunter’s library, David Weston. Part IV William Hunter: The Wider World: On the way to the museum: Frederich The Great’s Bildergalerie in the park of Sanssouci in the context of other paint

Biography

E. Geoffrey Hancock, an entomologist with a career in various British museums, is currently Honorary Curator of Entomology and a Research Fellow in The Hunterian Museum. His interests include the history of museums and their collections. Professor Nick Pearce holds the Sir John Richmond Chair of Fine Art at the University of Glasgow, where he specialises in the arts of China. His career has spanned both museums and universities, including the Victoria & Albert Museum, The Burrell Collection in Glasgow and the universities of Durham and Edinburgh. Mungo Campbell worked at the National Galleries of Scotland until 1997 and is now Deputy Director of The Hunterian. Curating several major loan exhibitions culminated recently in Allan Ramsay; Portraits of the Enlightenment (2013) and he edited the accompanying publication.

"William Hunter’s world is an excellent demonstration of how the histories of art and science can be enriched through attention to their intertwined material cultures. Interesting themes to emerge include the idea of encounters and exchanges within the collection; Hunter’s use of objects for teaching and research; museum documentation and what it can tell us about the emergence, transformation or dying away of disciplines; and questions of privacy in an era when dissection was conducted in private but its products were placed on display. The title provides a solid foundation for future William Hunter studies."

- Felicity Roberts, in Archives of Natural History, 2017

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