Reading decoloniality in the portrait of Captain John Foote by Joshua Reynolds, c. 1765 By Kuhu Kopariha The portrait of Captain John Foote wearing a Jama by Joshua Reynolds is a complex painting, not least because it is one of the earliest examples of cultural cross-dressing in English society. Here John Foote, a friend and neighbour …
The story of York Castle Prison is the story of the people whose lives it touched. Over the centuries, hundreds of people worked at York Castle, from cleaners to surgeons to gaolers. Most of the staff were men, and we know a little about some of them, but information about women staff members is a …
The Yorkshire Museum’s collections were begun in 1822 by the Yorkshire Philosophical Society (YPS). Every one of the hundreds of thousands of objects in the collections today has a story behind it. Some of our biology collection was donated by Adam Gordon, one of the most well-respected figures in Yorkshire in the 20th century.
A Green Father Christmas? This beautiful Victorian Christmas card dates from the last half of the 19th century, somewhere between 1870 and 1895. Father Christmas is wearing a green felt coat and is conversing with a robin. This is a useful resource because it highlights some of the imagery around Christmas which was discontinued in the 20 …
Earlier this year, we acquired some lovely butterfly and moth (Lepidoptera) specimens for the biology collection. This is the collection of Joyce Payne (1923-2020), who had a long and full life, dedicated to the study of these wonderful little animals, and left an indelible legacy for biology in Yorkshire.
Blog by Dr Helen Walsh, Curator of Ceramics ‘Body Vessel Clay: Black Women, Ceramics & Contemporary Art’ was a fabulous and beautiful exhibition which began at Two Temple Place, London, in January 2022 and toured to the Centre of Ceramic Art at York Art Gallery in June 2022. In practical terms it was interesting to see it …
Content advice This blog post contains information that could be upsetting, including discussion of murder and execution. It talks about crimes and a punishment that were carried out over 200 years ago.
In this mini-series, I would like to share with you the objects collected as part of York Castle Museum’s Covid Collecting Project. In case you missed it, our Curator Helen Thornton has blogged about the aims of the project and how she developed it. I’m here to give you a tour of the …
Last year, York Castle Museum embarked on a project to collect objects and stories which reflect York life during the Covid-19 pandemic. This mini-series will introduce the thinking behind this project and reveal the fantastic objects which have been acquired. Stay tuned for more blog episodes from our Associate Collections Curator, M Faye Prior. In …
Earlier this year we shared a blog about a new archaeological archives project focussing on the Mesolithic site of Star Carr. Excitingly, this is not the only major excavation to recently arrive in the collections of the Yorkshire Museum. From 2013-2016 Northern Archaeological Associates (NAA) were employed by Highways England to excavate the area to …
