Natter’s Museum Britannicum: British gem collections and collectors of the mid-eighteenth century

John Boardman, Julia Kagan, Claudia Wagner (Autoren)

Buch | Softcover

316 Seiten

2021
Archaeopress (Verlag)
978-1-78969-810-7 (ISBN)

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This book presents the first comprehensive publication of Lorenz Natter’s (1705- 1763) Museum Britannicum, offering full discussion in English and presenting Natter’s drawings and comments alongside modern information on the ancient and later engraved gems that can be identified and located through fresh research.

The German gem-engraver, medallist, and amateur scholar Lorenz Natter (1705-1763), was so impressed by the size and quality of the collections of ancient and later engraved gems which he found in Britain that he proposed the publication of an extraordinarily ambitious catalogue – Museum Britannicum – which would present engravings and descriptions of the most important pieces. He made considerable progress to this end, producing several hundred drawings, but in time he decided to abandon the near completed project in the light of the apparent lack of interest shown in Britain. Only one of the intended plates in its final form ever appeared, in a catalogue which he published separately for Lord Bessborough’s collection. On Natter’s death the single copy of his magnum opus vanished mysteriously, presumed lost forever.

All hope of recovering Natter’s unpublished papers seemed vain, and their very existence had come to be doubted. Yet they were to be found more than two hundred years after his death, in Spring 1975, when the classical scholar and renowned expert in gems, Oleg Neverov, chanced upon them at the bottom of a pile of papers in the archives of the State Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg. Neverov and his colleague Julia Kagan carried out the initial research on the Hermitage manuscripts and produced the first published account of this archival treasure.

The present volume builds upon their earlier work to produce the first comprehensive publication of Museum Britannicum, offering full discussion in English and presenting Natter’s drawings and comments alongside modern information on the gems that can be identified and located through fresh research. This book is the result of a ten-year collaboration between scholars on the Beazley Archive gems research programme at Oxford’s Classical Art Research Centre and the State Hermitage Museum. It fulfills Natter’s vision for the Museum Britannicum – albeit two and a half centuries late – to the benefit of art historians, cultural historians, curators, and gem-lovers of today.

Sir John Boardman, FBA, is Emeritus Lincoln Professor of Classical Archaeology and Art in the University of Oxford. ; Julia Kagan is the Curator of post-Classical engraved gems in the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg. ; Claudia Wagner is Director of the gems databases at the Beazley Archive in the University of Oxford and Senior Research Lecturer at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford.

Preface ;

PART 1 ;

I. An Anglo-Russian Project ;

II. Lorenz Natter. Early Career ;

III. Natter in Britain ;

IV. Natter in Russia ;

V. The Museum Britannicum Rediscovered ;

VI. Afterword ;

PART 2 ;

VII. The Museum Britannicum: the catalogue and drawings ;

VIII. The Collectors and their Gems ;

IX. Lorenz Natter’s own Collection ;

X. Natter’s own Index of the Museum Britannicum ;

XI. Natter’s Treatise and miscellaneous drawings ;

Index of gem subjects ;

Index of inscriptions ;

General Index to Part 1, and VIII

Erscheinungsdatum	09.03.2021
Co-Autor	Catherine Phillips
Zusatzinfo	Illustrated throughout in colour and black & white
Verlagsort	Oxford
Sprache	englisch
Maße	205 x 290 mm
Gewicht	1107 g
Themenwelt	Kunst / Musik / Theater
Themenwelt	Geisteswissenschaften ► Geschichte ► Hilfswissenschaften
ISBN-10	1-78969-810-3 / 1789698103
ISBN-13	978-1-78969-810-7 / 9781789698107
Zustand	Neuware