Mseum Manners

Museum Manners: The Sensory Life of the Early Museum Author(s): Constance Classen Source: Journal of Social History,
Vol. 40, No. 4 (Summer, 2007), pp. 895-914 Published by: Oxford University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25096398 . Accessed: 06/08/2013 19:55
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MUSEUM MANNERS: THE SENSORY LIFE OF THE EARLY MUSEUM

By Constance Classen Concordia University
In The BoyWho Breathed on the Glass in theBritish Museum H.M. Bateman de a is the of who arrested for story picts breathing on one of the display cases boy in the BritishMuseum.1 While purely fictional, this picture book highlights the
popular notion of the museum even are as inviolable have might the traditional (A and preservation porary museums with where a breath a site of pristine untouchable, contem effects. Many damaging 'hands off ethos of the museum example is the 'Touch Me'
exhibit at theVictoria & Albert Museum

govern ever,
innovative,
challenging interactive exhibitions.
recent
to the rule of sensory to is generally still exceptions restraint which expected visitors. Artefacts the behavior of museum for the most part are only to not tasted. How be seen, not felt, smelt, sounded and certainly intrinsic, how museums is this rule of sensory restraint were behave? What their of earlier to the museum? sensory How did and visitors to the first expectations experiences?3 and
inLondon.)2 Yet such exhibitions are
One of themost difficult subjects foran historian to investigate is that of the

corporeal they
ing,while
are
practices little
laden with social significance, are often so taken for granted that
commented on by their practitioners. It takes a very thorough
eras. Ways
of walking,
eating,
smelling
touch
observer to record the ordinary bodily motions of daily life. Often it is in the descriptions of travellers,who find local customs foreign and thereforeworthy
of note, past England practice that one we was comes times. Thus learn from a Frenchman's that customs of the corporeal of descriptions account of his eighteenth-century visit to in the House at that time the customary of Commons to stand "with their legs one knee somewhat straddling, the best as if they were reminiscences to fence."4 Another going of individuals who have pass away and of the long-lived potential lived long therefore make across
for orators
bent, and one arm extended, source of information is the
seen the customs to have enough note of them as curiosities. From
Mary Berry, we on tiptoe for example, learn that Horace to the walked Walpole according custom of elegant source Another of informa gentlemen. eighteenth-century
of their youth the recollections
mined byNorbert Elias inThe Civilizing Process, tion, and one which was richly is the etiquette guide. Such guides reveal both contemporary ideals of proper
among which the classes were deemed to which to require are addressed common and certain they correction. For example, the frequency
behavior practices
with which readers ofmedieval instructions are advised to clean theirhands be fore dipping them into the communal pot indicates that people frequently ate with unwashed hands.5 Justas it isoften difficult to know what people of past eras did with their bod ies, it isdifficult to know what theydid with the things around them.One can
not assume that the function
mere fact tells us nothing about chair is evidently designed for sittingon but this
of an object
is evident
in its design.
For
example,
896
the have social and performed to her
journal of social history
summer 2007
people chair, may for her to tell
example, cannot tell us that a dutiful daughter in the eighteen-hundreds might

curtsy father seated Similarly, in that chair, in future and even father was used absent.6
or about acts of chairs function the other symbolic a nineteenth-century at with them. Simply looking to the empty one would
chair be
when able
by looking at a dinner table fromour own era that, rather than being primarily Scholars of material culture are increasingly investigating the social life of
things, such as furniture or for dining, itwas customarily employed as a place for storage how and work.7 matter
centuries,
no
con The sensory practices.9 meaning objects through diverse seem to as they are from ordinary social use, may removed a social and sensory history which be frozen in time and space. Yet they too have here the interac merits It iswith that I investigate this aim in mind exploration. and imbued with tained in museums, tion of visitors role and curators with collections from the mid-sixteenth to such hundreds I am
be extended the constitution of the social world.8 This approach can fruitfully to include the sensory lifeof things,or theways inwhich objects are experienced
clothing,
in order
to uncover
objects
to
to the end of the eighteenth century. While

dominant particularly in the interested sensory experiences in examining what
of visitors
visual perception often played a

collections, may have done
else museum-goers
besides look. The central site for this investigation is theAshmolean Museum ofOxford, founded in 1683. This site is supplemented by other museums and collections in seventeenth and eighteenth century England.10 For the purpose of this study I have not distinguished between private collections frequented by the public,
institutional any case?as I have As come collections one finds and similar public visitor collections?a behaviour distinction problematic in all these sites.11 in
Take, for example the following description byCelia clusively hands-off affairs. Fiennes of a visit to theAshmolean Museum inOxford around 1694:
to it being a cav that was a great benefactor [T]here is a picture of a Gentleman sorts of figures is with all wood all carved of his the frame very finely alier, picture or silver gilt, leaves birds beasts and flowers, he gave them a fine gold Meddals given
to on bygone is often hard information noted, practices corporeal and eighteenth that do crop up in seventeenth by. Yet from the references were not ex accounts it is evident that early museums of museum visits, century
with were
two fine great Chaines of the same, one was all curious hollow worke which to him by some prince beyond sea; there is a Cane which looks like a its as light as a feather, there is solid heavy thing but if you take it in your hands a dwarfe shoe and boote, there are several Loadstones and it is pretty to see how stands it on top att some distance the needles the steele clings or follows it, hold towards it as it rises and falls. quite upright hold it on either side itmoves
From this run-on description (which mimics the experience of rushing fromone
exhibit Zacharias
hands on. This
to another) Conrad
we
learn
that
at
least
certain
exhibits who
in the museum
were
is confirmed by a 1710 account of a visit to theAshmolean

von Uffenbach, a German traveller, comments
on certain
by
tactile properties of the exhibits, finding the hair of a stuffedreindeer "almost as stifas horse-hair" while that of a Turkish goat is "as softas silk."13
Part of the attraction of museums and of the cabinets of curiosities which
MUSEUM MANNERS
physical character encounter with rare and may curious have objects. resided In certain cases
897
the curious
preceded them, in fact, seemed to be their ability to offervisitors an intimate

of a museum
the eye, such as in the case of the cane at the Ashmolean described by Fi ennes "which looks like a solid heavy thing but ifyou take it in your hands
its as light as a feather." that In these cases the non-visual providing counts indicate a necessary adjunct even artefacts to the sense
piece
in a quality
imperceptible
to
paintings?might qualities?including wrote in 1840 that everyone could remember critic, Anna Jameson, suggestively even strutted about the ornaments?and the days when "touching gallery-goers museum once a common the pictures!"14 While pieces was apparently touching phenomenon, the practice Jameson's was remark the had indicates eliciting of eating with one's hands of centuries earlier. With Elias same begun that by the mid-nineteenth-century custom that the time-honoured disapproval to incur among the upper one's classes a couple
senses be seen as might ac of sight. However, contemporary with no apparently distinctive non-visual art be touched by visitors. The popular
corporeal practices of earlier eras as simply the result of a lack of discipline and
education words, or "bad manners". These "as something ingful and necessary how early museums, as not was that fitted to them
customs such as eating with regard to premodern it is that insufficent and, indeed, misleading, argued
hands, Norbert to characterize the
must in Elias 's rather be explored, practices the needs of these people and that seemed mean in exactly to In terms of the visitors this form."15 artefacts but be un something context of their
derstood which
interactions with their multisensory might or "childish" a matter of "bad" behaviour simply and necessary to them within the cultural
time?
Museums the evident
meaningful and
have served a number of purposes other than galleries always to appreciate visitors of enabling their collections of art and are a site for social interaction artefacts. They and for acquiring and conveying an air of cultural a cool on a hot day or a may authority. They provide place one retreat. While modern often decry the amount of walking quiet gallery-goers were in seeing a museum, in private houses involved the first galleries employed were to these galleries to give in order for walking. added Paintings precisely
people something at which to look as theywalked.16 Although

this particular essay, the sensory history the interactions of visitors and curators visits in the seventeenth Furthermore, were with other integrated of the museum exhibits centuries, Fiennes, does with
it is the focus of
solely concern
not
and eighteenth actvities. Celia
bined her visit to theAshmolean with a tour of theOxford Colleges. She found Magdalen College remarkable for its "very fine gravel walk [on which] two or 3 may walke abreast", Corpus Christi Colege isnoted for its "very good bread and beare" Trinity College Chapel isdistinguished by its wainscotting in a "fine
sweet wood ... ...
as today, museum com for example,
ment
ken of": a portrait ofCharles

is all written hand
like cedar,"
and and
St
I inwhich "the whole lines of face hand and gar

contains the whole Common prayer."17 Fiennes
John's
offers
the
"great Curiosity
much
spo
full-bodied approach to sight-seeing is especially notable during her visit toOx ford'sPhysic Garden, which in some ways formed the botanical counterpart to
the Ashmolean with its collection of rare and curious plants:
898
The
summer 2007
afforded great diversion the variety of flowers and pleasure, Physick Garden one a week, the few remarakable and plants would have entertained things I took ... the Sensible notice off was take but a leafe between [Mimosa], finger plant it and it immediately curies up together as ifpained, and and thumb and squeeze ... there is also the Humble after some tyme opens abroad again plant that grows on a long slender stalke and do but strike it, it falls flatt on the ground stalke and all, and after some tyme revives againe and stands up ... there is theWormwood ... , a narrow the flavour is strong of sage long leafe full of ribbs, in your mouth to the taste.
Wormwood From Fiennes'
inves of these sites we can see that her museological descriptions a is no suggestion with her observations of elsewhere. There tigations piece senses within of the necessity of subduing one's collection overall settings. The a site has to offer and is of a lively exploration of whatever impression particular were the more interactive
museum. manual may
Let us look then at theways inwhich the sensesmight be engaged in the early
sense of touch, one key trait customarily As regards the is that of possession. is free to touch what One license as a sign of favour. to others, this privilege further extend and to allow favoured guests the same privilege. As associated one owns. In the case with One of a
that happens
to be
the better.
was (and is) customary forcollectors to handle their private collection, hence, it
pieces the first museums
to the public had their origins in private collections, it could be expected that
of the customs of the latter would were was guided be continued through in the former. by to early museums the collection For example, a curator, just the part of the in an account
open
many visitors visitors
as guests might be guided through a private collection by a host. Alllowing

to touch who the artefacts the role curator, visitor's
the
from 1760 in which

insistence She desired me what
played
on manual
the underkeeper of the Ashmolean

access:
on an expected mark of courtesy comes out clearly of the host. This
describes a museum
to take the Glass from off several of the Drawers, which Iwas some to do, lest anything be lost by that means; which she perceiving unwilling she told me that Iwas not quite so civil as might be; that the last time she had seen ... she had handled as in the Cabinet the Curiosities and examin'd the Museum long as she pleas'd.
Contemporary notions of civility evidently included being allowed to handle

museum
carried enough weight that, in this case, the curator did grant the ladyher wish and allowed her "to have some of them in her hand, that she might inspect
them more a
pieces,
even
small
items
stored
away
in drawers.
The
appeal
to
civility
inspecting the objects in the drawer he was kept busy handing "Curiosities" to
gentleman visitor. is often associated with for tactile the demands damage, access and with one the wonders how early cura of conser
narrowly."20
The
underkeeper
further notes
that while
the
lady was
requirements museum consti in the mind of donors?the In the public's mind?and of rare objects. In actual and display for the preservation tuted a safe place fact, curators were often not assidu and eighteenth-century seventeenthhowever, even according to the primitive ous conservers conservation of their collections, vation.
Handling tors balanced
practices of the day. Itwas noted of theAshmolean
in 1753, for example, that
MUSEUM MANNERS
the founding collection was "much the worse for wear, and even worse
899
if possi
ble by the conduct of some Keepers and their understrappers." In 1780 a report proclaimed that: "Nothing can equal the negligence with which theAshmolean
Museum was kept."21 an often irreverent attitude towards the objects under Despite were not so unconcerned curators the preservation of their about was a major concern for collection keepers. The great their care,
collections
that theyhad no reservations regarding the interaction of visitorswith exhibits.

seventeenth
Breakage
century collector Cardinal Mazerin attempted to keep his collection intactwith out making it untouchable by delicately reminding guests that "these pieces break if they fall."22Undoubtedly museum visitors would have required many
reminders usually of this been sort as well, and even have
concern. In order to minimize

required objects that only one
safeguarded
in glass group
in early museums fragile objects cases. Theft constituted another be admitted at a time
would major
the risk of theft the first statutes of the Ash

of visitors and that
molean
the doors be closed behind them.23The displacement of (more or less) carefully

arranged Significantly, cused of being tents of a cabinet a fear that which he in turn, was a constant for curators. annoyance by visitors, ac the eighteenth-century who was Ashmolean underkeeper a visitor manual to allow access to the con uncivil for hesitating was not motivated might "be
report of the incident was written to explain the loss of an (unidentified) gem
suspected she had Things was pocketed by the eager Iwent visitor. After many left the Museum had been displaced immediately by her, but could to adjust the Drawers not find the Gem. one might museum in which
something
a concern over but by by potential damage In fact, the underkeeper's lost by that means".
Though incidents with
the gem in this case was such as this would have
returned put a quick
to the museum, end tactile to hands-on access
think
that
tours. Yet of suf
as late as 1827 theAshmolean

the curator's permission.25
regulations allowed visitors to handle artefacts

Apparently was considered
ficient importance that itoutweighed the risks to the integrityto the collection which it entailed. It is impossible to know exactly how much early collections were handled by
visitors. ciate Museum goers the collection was frequently and properly lamented not time constraints having would enough certainly time to appre are have limited that
the amount touching one
of tactile
In his tour of English museums and collections, Von Uffenbach makes note of
place where his various sense of touch was restricted rather artefacts than were those where itwas
engagement possible. so commonplace, commonplace
the indications However, as to escape customarily
mention.
not. That place was the Chapel

Abbey, where historical
of St. Edward the Confessor

and legendary
in Westminster
chairs and "the famous stone of the Patriarch Jacob" among others. Von Uffen bach wrote thathe "should much have liked to scrape offa little" of this famous stone with his knife but "dared not, for one is liable to punishment for even sitting on one of these chairs."26A hint ofmodern museum policy is suggested here, except that the restrictions apparently did not go so far as to forbid all formsof touch for Von Uffenbach records the heaviness of a sword kept in the
same chapel.27
kept?coronation
900
Exhibits hanging in museums on walls or

and collections on which were placed out likely tables?were
summer 2007
in the open? to be touched?
but even exhibits indrawers and cases might be taken out and handled. Von Uf fenbach describes "a calculus as big as a hen's egg" in the collection of St John's College which was considered precious enough tomerit "a carefully designed gold casket with a crystal lid", yetwhich was taken out of itscase for the benefit of visitors.28The mere fact of an artefact being placed under glass hence did not
necessarily museums as now, perceive can to it be assumed visitors Nor that when signify untouchability. a was did. recorded collection that all "Then, "seeing" "seeing" they sense or to to mean to encounter in a general "to see" could be used In a description various of and could well include sensory modalities.
arranged
particularly
a visit to theTower of London in 1710 Von Uffenbach notes that an attempted robberyhad resulted in the crown jewels kept there being less accessible to vis itors.The jewels were now displayed behind a "trelliswork of strong iron ... throughwhich strangerscan view the things."He adds, however, that it is still possible "to get one's hand through and pick up the articles to feel theirweight,
so that opinion
the crown were tame others, not
in the century, describes putting his hands through the grate and picking up
the caged animals Even jewels.)30 out of hand's reach. The lions kept touch them with a satisfactory viewing in the Tower's famous were there, indeed, menagerie said to be "so and for
can still be seen tolerably.... everything as well. William of other visitors Hutton,
"29
(This
was
who
visited
apparently the Tower
the
later
that you can evidently,
Certain objects displayed inmuseums and collections were interactive by nature. Examples of this noted by Von Uffenbach were the sword kept in the Bodleian Library collection which had "a large knob of crystal,which can be unscrewed and inwhich is painted a golden hourglass" and a block of wood with a movable brass ring displayed in the collection of theAnatomy School inOxford: "not only can itbe turned completely round, but it shows no sign of chanical devices. One
eighteenth-century notes: "If you press the place where it has been soldered."32 to the Tower Other
perfect safety."31 For Von involved handling.
Uffenbach
such was the statue ofHenry VII which impressedmany

of London. your feet, A the floor with visiting you will Frenchman see something coyly sur
objects
were
enlivened
by
me
visitors a spot on
The "something prising with regard to this figure,but Iwill say no more_"33 to below. the described have been related may figure's codpiece, surprising" sense in most collection of touch role evident the the by Generally, played of a sculpture, for example, could be complemented by a tactile impression of its smoothness. Smaller objects might be handled in order to enable them to be When visitingHans Sloane's better seen?turned around or held up to the light. collection inLondon Von Uffenbach describes holding a shell up to the light so that he could see "the concham lyingconcealed within it."34
Touch had settings was that of supplementing vision. A visual impression of the smoothness
certainty, an association symbolically grounded in the biblical tale of Thomas, As Robert Man who needed to touch the risenChrist to believe inhis reality. drou pointed out inhis history of earlymodern France:
an advantage
over
sight
in that
itwas
understood
to be
the sense
of
MUSEUM MANNERS
Until senses. the eighteenth century at least, touch remained one of the master and confirmed what sight could only bring to one's notice. It verified giving solidity to the impressions provided by the other senses, which perception, were not as reliable. It checked in the eye-minded when vision was lauded
901
Even
the basis of all intellectual cognition, there were stillmany who considered touch "to have the best and final access to theworld that sense reveals."36 Such
assertions are borne
eighteenth-century,
widely
as
ample, themost remarkable item in the Bodleian collection according toVon Uffenbach was a framed image of a lizard inwhite marble set in a black mar ble. He wrote that although this looked like a work of nature the eye might be deceived by skilful artifice.Touch, however, provided reliable evidence of the natural origin of the image: "a blind man even though he could not see could yet feel that this is a natural vein (palpando experiri potest)."31 The sense of touch not only verfied sight, it also provided informationnot
accessible
out by the use
of touch
by visitors
to early museums.
For
ex
ascertain theirweight.When describing the collection in theTower of London Von Uffenbach stressed the importance of being able to pick up the crown jewels and feel theirweight. When visiting theAshmolean Fiennes tested theweight of a cane. In 1646 John Evelyn recorded liftingan antler in a Swiss collection to test itsweight ("one branch of them was as much as I could well lift").38
Nor were
to the eye. Visitors
to collections,
for example,
often
lifted objects
to
Pepys went to see two oversized children on display at Charing Cross in 1667 he "tried toweigh them in [his] arms."39 The weight of an object might be taken as an indication of thematerial of its
or of the to wield to of its value, it. Attempting composition, strength required was a ascertain not matter the weight of something by lifting it, however, just of data gathering, such as might otherwise and with better accuracy have been exhibits While enabled visitors to acquire an embodied be understanding of the nature of
only
inanimate
showpieces
subjected
to this treatment.
When
Samuel
accomplished with scales, but of bodily knowledge. A hands-on approach to the display.
in a museum anything seems to have in particular in the mid-seventeenth noted ture touching them.40 In the case of humans sensory able
might elicited
representations stone?a hard ever, have been
century, of sculpture and animals
the subject of a visitor's touch, sculp a tactile a French As courtier response. at people began looking sculptures by the sense of touch gave notice that the looked lost and so real were its power in fact made to fascinate.41 and of At
that
contradiction to actually
that never
the same time itallowed people to vicariously handle what theywould rarely, if
touch?emperors goddesses lions. Cer
and Galatea. Vitellesco,
tainly sculptures,with their life-like forms, might also elicit a sensuous desire for tactile intimacy,as depicted, forexample, in the ancient myth of Pygmalion
One was reputed and prominent seventeenth-century to embrace and kiss the centuries.43 collector in Rome, statues in his Hippolito Far collection.42
frombeing exceptional,
the seventeenth
it is likely thatmany statues were handled thisway in
eighteenth
902
Some suous. nounced critics The found such

tactile art interaction theorist and with sculpture too Vicenzio
summer 2007
eenth-century Friedrich Schiller claimed that the use of touch foraesthetic ap

preciation was a mark
sixteenth-century the practice of touching
kissing
sen coarsely for de example, Borghini, as statues In the eight vulgar.44 held that sculptures might
best be comprehended by the hands. Benedetto Varchi suggested that touch alone could appreciate the artifice involved in a sculpted work.46 Referring to
a famous ancient statue was known as that "there the greatest the Hermaphrodite, which refinement, Lorenzo Ghiberti not com the eye would have
of savagery.45
Others,
however,
mented
discovered, had not the hand sought it out."47 In the late eighteenth century Goethe poet icily declared that by caressing flesh one comes to understand the
tactile The
notably upheld by theGerman philosopher Johann Gottfried Herder. Herder, was in fact, considered sculpture to be the highest formof art precisely because it sense to to the of the touch afforded touch. According perceptible philosopher,
a more
of sculpture: of touch importance
value
to "see with
feeling
eye,
feel with
for the aesthetic
appreciation
a seeing hand."48 was most of sculpture
tronsprobably did not attempt to justifytheir caresses of sculptures by reference to philosophies of aesthetics, their practices could nonetheless be encompassed
by contemporary that motivated the patriarch ily thwarted theories of art.50
profound
appreciation
of beauty
than
sight.49 While
most
museum
pa
The most damaging form of touch manifested by visitors to collections was

by the desire to possess the object on display, or some part
of
it, as when Von Uffenbach wished to scrape off a little of "the famous stone of
in Westminster. Jacob" owners by collection of items not deemed as While and to be this desire it was no doubt was customar that items curators, also the case
or
fragments to visitors away items for and "to some
Ashmolean
decreed
be given valuable might particularly or tokens statutes souvenirs The of the of esteem. original museum of redundant that the Keeper presents might make of extraordinary quality."51 When Von Uffenbach noted vis the
Person
ited the collection of historical records in Wakefield Tower inLondon he asked

received
use
how
account theGerman traveller Sophie de laRoche wrote of her 1786 visit to the BritishMuseum (established in 1753):
With near Capua, a Carthaginian sensations one handles helmet excavated ... There are mirrors too, to Ro utensils from Herculaneum belonging ... with one of these mirrors inmy hand I looked amongst the urns, man matrons these remains some amongst thinking meanwhile, 'Maybe chance has preserved or Roman who so many centuries part of the dust from the fine eyes of a Greek lady, ' ... Nor could I restrain my desire to touch the ago surveyed herself in this mirror I felt it gently, with ashes of an urn on which a female figure was being mourned. ... I as her great feeling pressed the grain of dust between my fingers tenderly, just ... best friend might once have grasped her hand what household
an intimate seen senses to attain them. We with have engagement a desire also for tactile often elicited the same might intimacy, sculptures occur with a wide of this comes from an best description range of artefacts. The their
"fibrousand tough" quality of the paper.)52 If they could not actually possess the objects on exhibit, visitors did often
a torn piece
of a letter
"of particular
antiquity."
(He
MUSEUM MANNERS
903
Itwas over a hundred years since theAshmolean first opened itsdoors when this experience was recorded at the BritishMuseum but the indication is that touch
still had of visitor an
developments had occurred during those years of which a more in-depth study
behaviour
important
place
inmuseum
visits. Of would
course,
many
social account.
and
sensory
Sophie de laRoche's
scientifically-minded artefacts, and exotic
in early museums Uffenbach.
have
to take
romantic sensibilitywould have been foreign to themore

Yet, when and a collection contained visitors ancient seventeentheighteenth-century besides
Certainly
Von many
La Roche must have felt a thrillat holding in theirhands what long-ago and far away people had held in theirhands. In her visit to the BritishMuseum Sophie
de la Roche even
display in order to establish direct contact with her throughher bodily remains. The seeming ability of touch to annihilate time and space gave it a particularly
vital As and role an in the museum where
imaginatively
ressurected
a former
owner
of the artefacts
on
faraway. Touch helped bring themuseum to life.

intimate social emotional sensory connections contact, with however, other with touch peoples one's own
so many
of the exhibits
were
from than
long
ago
and
did more
create and
and
which had passed through a succession of distinguished hands in the past. Itwas also a means of transferring power. A number of the objects displayed in early museums and collections had religious, royal or mythological associations and
seemed
quiring
prestige,
of touching
places. hands artefacts
It was
physical a way of ac artworks
part to the cult of themuseum object could be found in the cult of the religious relic, inwhich devotees frequently touched and kissed relics and icons both as Protestant England where the religious veneration of images and relicshad been
suppressed, vital energy the During picted "a with the touch could was the belief lived on seventeenth that a sign of reverence and as a mode of receiving an influx of sacrality.54 Even in
to many
to be
imbued
with
sacred
or
magical
qualities.
The
counter
still practiced healing by touch in England.55 Thus when Hans Sloane

in an sacred eighteenth-century that touched pin, satire must transformative poem the impressing ruff that touched within as visitors to his
or persons be sources of could objects extraordinary in popular in some cases in official practice. culture and and early eighteenth-century, for example, monarchs
is de
collection
intended have stuck
be understood
a cultural
Bess's Queen chin,"56 context in which the
of a monarch,
lining ofHenry VIII's codpiece, kept in the collection of theTower of London,

Even full of pins which ifno wonder-working were to visitors as given away fertility charms.57 contact into close effects were coming expected,
or of which had been touched something by a monarch, In fact, in the eighteenth effects. the velvet century
moment meaningful The quasi-magical traordinary horns?but
with royaltyexercised a powerful attraction forcollection visitors. When Samuel Westminster Abbey in 1669, he was allowed to touch the corpse Pepys toured ofQueen Katherine, wife of Henry V, which was kept in a chest. "[I] had the upper part of her body inmy hands. And I did kiss her mouth, reflectingupon it that I did kiss a Queen and that thiswas my birthday."58 Itwas obviously a
for Pepys. nature of certain collections relics, was due not only and to the ex unicorns' ordering a
world of natural and artificial objects. The seventeenth-century Tradescant col
objects they contained?royal to their role as microcosms, also
Egyptian
mummies,
bringing
together
904
lection of curiosities, which tion, was memorialized in one closet shut." and manipulating one itor, made I have thus

would also form as the nucleus tombstone the Ark on It was the Tradescant known as "a world
summer 2007
of the Ashmolean in reference as owner, to Noah's curator collec of wonders Ark or vis
which preserved the world inminiature during the Biblical flood.59Surveying

in this microcosm, the objects a master of the universe god-like, on the collections because, after either with the world in seventeenth in one's and that one hands. eight finds
far concentrated
role of touch
eenth-century the most references no means important role was it was
left behind
in contemporary at the museum that of attending virtually
or
and guides. Indeed, whether visitors found the patter of their guides informative
tedious, a unavoidable was also used
senses were by In terms of hearing, this sense's most owners to the accounts given by collection door. accompaniment to listen to those to collection visits
sight, it is to this sense Yet the other accounts.60
during
sounds, which could include natural objects, such as the petrified egg with a rattlingyolkwhich JohnEvelyn describes,61 or artefacts, such as automata which
music or talked.62 Musical instruments in particular required sounding
this period.
Hearing
exhibits
that made
played
out to be fully appreciated. When visiting the large collection of Claudius de Puy in London Von Uffenbach describes the "most agreeable sound" produced
Indian Indeed by "an elegant organ."63 were never heard?a instruments which the notion common of a collection of musical in modern enough situation
museums?would probably have seemed bizarre inVon Uffenbach's day. The sense of smell is usually mentioned by collection visitors with regard to
scented woods by visitors, pieces were rience. tions must Coal due also or strong-smelling animals of artefacts would the odours Ambient and odours smoke soot were on exhibit.64 have Even been when not recorded often when the perceived in the collection expe
handled.
also played a characteristic
a role feature A
to the pervasive of coal for heating. burning in many museums, such have been common many disintegrating smell had more animal powerful remains.65 symbolic
of early English collec of decay odour musty as the Ashmolean, which and a larger ritual
included
role in early modernity than itwould have in later times.66Anthony Wood Oxford in 1687, eight records, forexample, that during the entryof James II into women clad inwhite strewed fragrantherbs before the king's retinue "which made a verie great smell in all the street,continuing so all thatnight till the raine
came "virtues" as a have cluded be be ... "67 Odour was understood or traits. As shall be described or to be a sign of an object's person's this gave smell a chemical, below, intrinsic as well
Generally,
associations
symbolic One might been
importance. presume that, as the collection as multisensory experience might ex been have the sense of taste, at least, would to collec it is true that visitors while However, Just as occurs museums, a collation. there was today, however, Hans museum visits might sometimes
tions did not customarily go around tasting the exhibits, their visit stillmight
informed coupled by gustatory with meals. if so associations.
for early moderns, from that experience.
brought food to eat within the collection space itself.68In private collections, For those who ended his guided tourof his collection with coffee in the library.69
wished for more meal and less museum, Don Saltero 's coffee house, the owner, inclined, might provide Sloane customarily
In early
public
visitors
MUSEUM MANNERS
objects, many of them cast-offs from Sloane's museum.70
905
established by Sloane's former servant and embellished with a range of curious Not only might meals be taken within a museum, themuseum itself might the Prince and Princess ofWales visited be conceptualized as a meal. When
Sloane's museum in 1748, exhibits were set up on and removed all from tables like the courses "[T]he same ish'd and of a meal. tables were consisted The first course precious course for a second or with was stones with carv'd as found in nature.
covered
gems, fashion, of gold and silver ornaments not a standard visit, the most part of a museum Though were collectibles in the museum when occurred of taste third course sampled. visiting Von Sloane's Uffenbach, collection: for example, records the
set after the modern
sorts of jewels, pol or engraved ..." The from around the world.71 direct involvement eaten or when themselves experience
following
It other things he pointed out to us the nests that are eaten as a delicacy. Among is formed in the sea like the succino and used by the birds is said that the material to build their nests. But, judging from its taste, appearance and feeling, I took it for a gum or resin.... Uffenbach uses
Von
his
sense
of
taste
here
as an
instrument
of
which supplements sight and touch. Although he doesn't make a point of it,by
a bond with the Asian the birds' nests he also creates tasting I have "the nests "the nests that are eaten" become the nests: peoples eaten." who eat
investigation
would
Sloane, for example, possessed a branch of the coffee treewith its leaves and berries in his collection, the viewing of which would have provided an appro with which priate prelude for the subsequent partaking of coffee in the library
favoured Central
in exotic items were still considered later become enough commonplace to be interesting museum the rare and cu the eighteenth-century (It was pieces. museum were collectors and visitors, rather than rious which prized by generally common in also be found which collections.) specimens might comprehensive
In fact, certain foods which had recently been introduced to England and
for invalids.)73
In the case their of exotic skins or before medicinal for ingesting pieces which shells of them had animals, many at a museum.74 arrived been
America,
was also interested in the cacao bush of (Sloane guests were honoured. as a restorative his own brand of chocolate and even marketed eaten
use.
Indeed, also
the kinds were
their presumed medicinal in museums. of rarities exhibited items in contemporary
sailors by hungry were for imported a common reason effect was Others Characteristic included museum not just
specimens of plants and animals, however, but also such things as mummy flesh and even fossilsand stone axes?which would be taken inpowdered form.75 The
rare and wondrous also make
pharmacopoeia
While
from such collectors medicinal,
public museums such as theAshmolean
qualities it strong medicine.
that made
an
object
likely
museum
piece
might
there no doubt were many gustatory appropriation by visitors or at least part of them. Aside who literally ate their museums, or scientific value, gastronomic act of ownership. Even museum
were presumably safeguarded

private from its
the ultimate
a museum piece was, perhaps, eating to eat the visitors who were unable
906
particular cary's "unicorns' itself often

horns" or Egyptian mummies with on its exotic display,
summer 2007
might have par
taken of them in the past through their local apothecary.76 Indeed the apothe
shop resembled a museum might provide of the founders Hans a "feast" and Early just the eyes. curators at least of early museums, was a for example, and physician for more than materia medica.71
collections, consequently, It is notable how many in England, naturalist, dent were while men Elias and
of science.
Sloane,
was an ardent stu founder of the Ashmolean, Ashmole, to museums, visitors such as Evelyn and Many chemistry.78 were Von Uffenbach, in scientific matters. also keenly interested The strong as sociation to reinforce science between and museology served the use of multiple of botany senses when tic glasses, interacting seventeenth with and museum pieces. For all its fascination or natural with op eighteenth-century science, philosophy,
considered smell,
still emphasized the importance ofmulti-sensorial investigation forunderstand ing the nature of the objects under study. Indeed, whereas today sightwould be
a more serious way of comprehending sight might museum in the seventeenth museum or century have been pieces deemed than touch or the more su
perficial or frivolous formof apprehension. Thus Robert Hooke,

Royal
curator of the
of ob
jects needed to be accompanied by the "manual handling

He also warned that: is not able for divertisement The use of such a collection for children study of the most
Society's
"Repository"
stated
that the occular
... of the very things
inspection
themselves."79
like pictures and diligent
to admire
... and wonder, and gazing and be pleased with, but for the most serious in natural philosophy. and proficient
For Hooke
such diligent study included noting such qualities as

or Cold Stiffness, ... or Levity. Gravity, or Pliableness. Rough
or Dulness. Sonorousness Smell or Taste. Heat, or Fineness. Coarseness, Fastness, or Looseness. or Slipperiness. ness, or Brittleness. Claminess,
The
fellows of the Royal Society took such recommendations to heart. The

and botanist Nehemiah museum. Grew, in the Society's Experiments for example, items he cat tasted many at the Royal undertaken Soci
physician alogued
etymight also involve multisensory inquiry.The report of a 1679 experiment on hartshorn which had been softened by boiling noted that the result "smelt, tasted and felt" like "old cheddar or Parmesan cheese."82 In 1681 Evelyn recorded which involved dissolving phospurus in ale. "Of this I drank," wrote Evelyn, "& [it] seem'd tome to be of an agreeable amber scent,with very little altering the tast of theAle."83 While prominent in itspromotion of empirical philosophy, the Royal Soci etywas by no means unique in its sensorymethodology. When Von Uffenbach felt and tasted his way through collections he was employing current scientific methodology. So was Robert Plot, who would become the first Keeper of the Ashmolean, when he classfied the echoes produced byOxfordshire colleges and
caves sons or noted the odours have visitors of fossils.84 not range of rea perhaps comprehensive, it "meaningful found and and collections Here then we a wide, though to early museums being present at an experiment on phosphorus at the Royal Society, part of
for why
MUSEUM MANNERS
907
with their exhibits than Elias's words?to engage using more necessary"?in on the interests and back reasons in any case would eyes. The depend particular seem to have been motivated Fiennes would of the visitor. Celia primar ground
ilyby general curiosity inher sensory explorations, Zacharias Von Uffenbach by scientific interest and Sophie de la Roche by a desire to establish an intimate
with interactions the artefacts' that the of a visitor owners. It was no doubt often the case original were or a different combi motives, prompted by on the receive piece?a particular sculpture might icon a devo shell a scholarly touch, and a religious which for interacting survived with would museum be pieces would or redi repressed of perception
connection nation
of motives, depending an aesthetic touch, an exotic tional lose and rected touch. relevance within Some of these in modernity, a museum museum
reasons others due use.
context
to the rise of new
paradigms
were
Significantly, divisions among the fields of aesthetics, science and religion

not as as they would come in the period under consideration clearly marked in late modernity. In private and public collections, objets d'art often min
of appropriate
to be
gled with botanical and zoological specimens and historical and ethnographic artefacts. (Indeed, natural objects which looked as though theyhad been crafted pieces.) vation, modern ral and Even in the "New Philosophy" with its emphasis on empirical obser adhered to bymany of the key figures in the development of the early museum, themythical and themagical often mingled with the natu the historical. Hans Sloane upheld the efficacyof a number of wonder working remedies in his medical practice which would later be dismissed as su perstitious. Elias Ashmole had an abiding interest in astrology and occultism. Robert Plot was an alchemist. This characteristically premodern mingling of
according all sensory channels.85 through as constituting could be regarded sounds and smells. Soon, much changes expected and not end however, less sensuous in scientific to gather by sniffing the scientific in nature. practice information or tasting spheres cosmos of knowledge was to which a of the accompanied by multisensory understanding was crucial information transmitted and discernible If the museum a multisensory world Due and view?and was a little cosmos of colours, then it too textures, become as well scientist as to was by hand, such as the marble lizard mentioned above, were favourite museum
tapestry
the museum?would
means by the material in fact,
to technological developments theory, the nineteenth-century of microscopes under study. Indeed,
and measuring devices the non-visual
senses would be given little role to play inmodern scientific inquiry.86 By the
taste of the nineteenth-century, and touch, had been the use generally relegated senses of smell, of the proximity to the realm of the nursery and
the "savage." Civilized adults were deemed to comprehend the world primarily though sight and secondarily through hearing.87
As
contact with museum pieces could no longer be justified by scientific values.

The could important reasonably with thing in modernity was to see. All to have that a clear, a modern well-lit
regards
the museum,
this
sensory
shift meant
that
allowing
visitors
close
jects on display. This move away fromphysical interactionwith museum pieces

coincided the
expect,
therefore,
was
museum-goer view of the ob As
the number of visitors tomuseums grew so did the risk of damage to he collec
increasing
nineteenth-century
concern
for conservation.
908
tions. A necessity.88 of Sociological the museum, factors just as also hands off policy,

hence, came to be regarded by curators transition. was
summer 2007
as a practical
On his firstvisit to the Ashmolean Von Uffenbach was dismayed to find the museum fullof "country folk"who "impetuously handle[d] everything."89 What was the meaning of this "impetuous handling" by "country folk," people who
left no records of their museum visits? Perhaps a combination communal of manual participation? ex
a role in this sensory played not everyone in the real world,
In the world equal.
considered
reminiscent of the tradition of taking food by the hand from a common pot. to the custodians?it evidently signified a lack of or To Von Uffenbach?and
der. Von Uffenbach his class own manual as such, as we know exhibits from against handling museum was saw to of he what he pieces, explorations opposed masses. were definite untutored of the uncultured There handling of touch his in the museum, scorn greatest and gender distinctions women for lower-class who as well. visited Von muse was not
ploration,
tactile
frisson,
vicarious
possession
and
as the rough, distinctions
Uffenbach
reserved
ums. In the case of theAshmolean he noted with disgust that "even thewomen are allowed up here for sixpence; they runhere and there, grabbing at everything
and
While
taking
no
rebuff from in the present
the Sub-Custos it is clear
."90 from contemporary connoisseur and of the common accounts As that museums the
the museum
Iwill not explore the implications of such class and gender divisions in
essay scholar visitor. were under
sensory impressions gathered by the (male) stood to be on a different plane from those became and to and open centuries nineteenth from handling Jameson by Anna more
artefacts quote and classes seum and
there was above?that
frequented by the general public not only was there an increased also an increased the "vulgar" touch
in the late eighteenth to of damage danger in the visitor of the common
sense?manifested
profaned the exhibits, and implicitly the social elite who acquired collections Indeed, it may have been as much the desire of the elite to prevent the lower
towards from showing disrespect were seen as to represent, pieces the cultural the modern models almost and political on emphasis of science mu authority conservation and aesthetics, of the mu supported museums.
of more the development in the non-visual that resulted by the mid-nineteenth
visually-oriented senses being century. Mercier After
seum
is the toppling of statues, as had been dramatically illustratedduring the French

Revolution. Louis-Sebastian described
entirely all, a characteristic visiting a
shut out
act of revolution
museum of toppled monuments
in Paris in 1797:
post-Revolutionary
I walked on tombs, I strode on mausoleums. Every rank and costume lay beneath the from their pedestals, my feet. I spared the face and bosoms of queens. Lowered were brought down to my level; I could touch their brows, grandest personages ... their mouths. to scenes such due Perhaps of working-class rage seemed in administrators England.92 one could see them "sitting as this, the fear one that museums be a target might of nineteenth-century official mid-nineteenth-century over those fine works,
ever-present No wonder
in the minds
wrote with satisfaction of the workers in theNational Gallery of London

wondering and marvelling
that
MUSEUM MANNERS
and having no other feeling but that of pleasure with or astonishment,
909
they have
no notion of destroying them."93This sounds remarkably like Robert Hookes'

description placent rather
handling" observed byVon Uffenbach

in the art galleries Whatever the of her reasons our youth. for this
of gawking children than contemptuous.
pleased
Certainly
in theAshmolean
shift,
but now the tone is com pictures there is no sign of the "impetuous
or byAnna
how
Jameson
have it also time and
not
behaved in museums, how theyhave perceived and interactedwith the exhibits,

only furthers offers an excellent attained understanding of how example expression the of the development sensory values a key of the museum, of a particular site. cultural
sensory
investigating
people
place
practical
within
Department of Sociology and Anthropology Montreal QCH3G1M8

Canada
ENDNOTES
Part of the research cial Sciences Development 1. H.M. on which and Humanities Fund. Bateman, The this essay is based was made possible by grants from So Council of Canada Research and the CUPFA Professional
1976).
2.
Boy Who
Breathed
on theGlass
in the British Museum
(London,
as regards the visually role of touch in the contemporary museum, The particularly in Fiona Candlin, "Don't Touch! Hands Off! Art, Blindness and impaired, is discussed the Conservation of Expertise," 71-90. Body & Society 10 (2004):
Thought (London, 1975).

4. 5. Pierre Norbert Jean Grosley,
The subject of visitor response to museums has been treated by a number of scholars and administrators, but rarely as regards sensory response. See Lynne Teather, "Museology and Its Traditions: The British Empire, of 1845-1945," (Ph.D. Dissertation, University A Social History ofMuseums: theVisitors What Leicester, 1984), ch. 9; Kenneth Hudson, 3.
A Tour
toLondon,
T. Nugent,
trans.
(London,
1772). and
Civilization, 6. Shane
and State Formation Elias, The Civilizing Process: The History ofManners E. Jephcott, trans. (Oxford: Blackwell, 1994), p. 52. Leslie, Men Were Different: Five Studies in Late Victorian Biography
NY, 1967), p. 94.

7.
(Freeport,
Sarah Womack,
"Salad
Days Over
forDinner
Table,"
National
Post,
10 June 2005.
8. in See, for example, Arjun Appadurai, ed., The Social Life of Things: Commodities Cultural in the Social World Culture 1986); Tim Dant, Material Perspective (Cambridge, 1999); Lorraine Dixon, ed., Things That Talk: Object Lessons from Art and (Buckingham,
Science (New York, 2004).
910 journal of social history

9. Works Foul and
summer 2007
The Corbin, dealing with the cultural history of the senses include Alain the Fragrant: Odor and the French Social Imagination, M. Kochan, R. Porter, and trans. (Cambridge, MA, C. Prendergast, 1986); Constance Classen, Worlds of Sense: Ex (London, 1993); Peter Charles ploring the Senses inHistory and Across Cultures Hoffer,
in Early America (Baltimore, MD, 2003); David Howes, ed., Empire of the Sensory Worlds Senses: The Sensual Culture Reader (Oxford, 2004); Mark M. Smith, How Race is Made: Slavery, Segregation and the Senses (Chapel Hill, 2006). 10. How characteristic museums was of visitors the comportment of visitors to English museums in general is a subject for future research. I have thus far found no there were major differences.
reason
to European
to believe
11. On Origins
(Oxford, 1985).
12. 13. Celia
see Oliver the early history of museums eds., The Impey and Arthur MacGregor, in Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century Europe The Cabinet ofCuriosities ofMuseums:
Fiennes,
The Journeys of Celia von Uffenbach, 1928), p. 26.
Fiennes
(London,
1949),
p. 33. and W.J.C Quarell,
Zacharias trans.
Conrad (Oxford,
eds. and 14- Cited 15.
Oxford
in 1710, WH.
Quarrell
by Frank Herrmann, Process,
ed., The English as Collectors p. 55. House
(London,
1972),
p. 126.
Elias, The Civilizing Girouard,
16. Mark 101. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21.
Life in theEnglish Country
(New Haven,
CT,
1978),
pp.
100
Fiennes, Fiennes, Cited Ovenell, Cited
Journeys, pp. 33-37. Journeys, pp. 34-35. in R.E Ovenell, Ashmolean inMartin The Ashmolean Museum, p. 147. in by its Earliest Visitors," p. 68; see also Uffenbach, Museum (Oxford, 1986), p. 147.
Arthur
Oxford in 1710, p. 24.

22. G.C. 23. 24. 25. Paul
MacGregor,
as Described "The Ashmolean Welch, Rarities (Oxford, ed., Tradescant's 1983),
Bauer,
Fr?art de Chantelou, eds., M. Corbett, Ashmolean Ashmolean Ashmolean
Bernini's Visit to France, A. Diary of Cavali?re trans. (Princeton, NJ, 1985), p. 185. p. 50. pp. 147-148
Blunt
and
Ovenell, Ovenell, Ovenell,
Museum, Museum, Museum,
p. 197. London in 1710, WH. Quarrell and M. Mare,
26. Zacharias Conrad trans. (London, 1934), 27. 28. Von Uffenbach, Von Uffenbach,
von Uffenbach, p. 92. London
in 1710, p. 93. in 1710, p. 58.
Oxford
MUSEUM MANNERS 911

29. Von Uffenbach, Hutton, London in 1710, p. 40. 2nd ed. (London, 1818), pp. 124-125. Count
30. William 31. Frederick
A Journey toLondon, Diary
ess Kielmansegg 32. 33.
Kielmansegge, [sic], trans. Oxford
(London,
of a Journey toEngland 1902), p. 182. 13, 23.
in theYears
1761-1762,
Von Uffenbach, C?sar
in 1710, pp.
Madame 34. 35. R.E. 36.
de Saussure, von Muyden,
A Foreign View trans. (London, London
of England 1952),
in theReigns of George
I and George
U,
p. 88.
Von Uffenbach, Robert
in 1710, p. 186. An Essay inHistorical Psychology,
Hallmark,
Modern France: Introduction to Mandrou, trans. (New York, 1976), p. 53
David Summers, The Judgement of Sense: thetics (Cambridge, 1987), p. 326.
Renaissance
Naturalism
and
the Rise ofAes
37. Von Uffenbach,Oxford in 1710, p. 13.

38. 516. 39. John Evelyn, The Diary of John Evelyn, E.S. de Beer, ed. (Oxford, 1955), vol. II, p.
Samuel
ley, 1976), 40. 41.
Pepys, The Diary vol. VIII, p. 326. Diary, p. 185 Francis
of Samuel
Pepys, R. Latham
and W. Matthews,
eds.
(Berke
Chantelou, See,
Lure of Classical Sculpture,1500-1900 (NewHaven, CT, 1981), pp. 163, 235

42. 43. Evelyn, Diary, The intimate p. 283 contacts France
for example,
Haskell
and Nicholas
Penny, Taste
and
theAntique:
The
in which took place between and sculptures gallery-goers are in of artist the the work Gabriel contemporary eighteenth-century depicted inMaterial From the Museum of Touch" de St. Aubin. See Susan Stewart, "Prologue: Breward and Jeremy Aynsley, eds. (Oxford, 1999): Memories, Marius Kwint, Christopher 29-30. 44G?raldine A. Johnson. "Touch, Tactility, and the Reception to in A Art P. Smith and C. Wilde, Italy" Theory, Companion in Early of Sculpture eds. (Oxford, 2002),
Modern p. 66. 45.
Friedrich
Willoughby, 46.
the Aesthetics and Education Schiller, On eds. and trans. (Oxford, 1982), p. 195. "The Touch Art," of the Blind Man: Flesh: On
Man, of
E.M. Wilkinson
and L.A.
Jodi Cranston, in Italian Renaissance
The Touch
in Sensible
Harvey, ed. (Philadelphia, 2003): 238-239

47. Johnson, "Touch," p. 64.
Phenomenology in Early Modern
of Vividness Culture, E.D.

von Goethe, 48. Johann Wolfgang trans. (Wichita, KS, 1974), p. 45. Roman Elegies and Venetian
summer 2007
Epigrams, L.R. Lind,
in Shape and Form from Pyg 49. Johann Gottfried Herder, Sculpture: Some Observations malion's Creative Dream, ed. and trans. (Chicago, 2002); Robert E. Norton, J.Gaiger, Herder's Aesthetics and the European Enlightenment 1990), ch. 6 (Ithaca, NY, on the side of anti-tactility, see James Hall, 50. For a discussion of this issue, weighted to the Present The World as Sculpture: The Changing Status of Sculpture from theRenaissance refers to many informative sources in his work. (London, 1999), ch. 4. Hall Day 51. 52. Ovenell, Ashmolean Museum, p. 50.
Von Uffenbach,
London
in 1710, p. 69. inLondon, C. Williams, trans. (London, 1933), pp. 107?
53. Sophie 108. 54. See,
de La Roche,
Sophie
(London, 55. See
for example, Christopher 1901), p. 155. Keith Thomas, ed. "Magical (Oxford,
Nyrop,
The Kiss &
Its History, WE
Harvey,
trans.
Constance 56. Cited
Classen,
2005):
The Healing: 354-362. Sloane
King's
Touch,"
in The
Book
of Touch,
p. 125
57. London 58. 59. don, 60.
inGavin
R. De
Beer, Sir Hans
and
the British Museum
(London,
1953),
Von
Uffenbach, (Cambridge,
London MA,
1978),
in 1710, p. 41; p. 88.
see also Richard
D. Altick,
The
Shows
of
Pepys, Diary, Mea
vol.
IX, p. 457. and Museum, 1570-1662 (Lon
Their Plants, Gardens The Tradescants: Allan, Tradescant's Rarities. 1964); MacGregor, the social history of the sense of touch
On
see Constance
Touch (Oxford,2005).
61. 62. 63. 64. 65. Evelyn, Diary,
Classen,
ed., The
Book
of
vol.
II, p. 471 ch. 3.
see Altick,
Shows of London, London
Von Uffenbach, For example, In 1755
in 1710, p. 83. vol. II, p. 502; Altick, Shows of London, pp. 88, 89.
Evelyn, Diary,
a number
Ashmolean. 66.
Welch,
of damaged "The Ashmolean David
or decayed specimens had to be removed from the as Described by its Earliest Visitors, p. 68. Howes, and Anthony Synnott, Aroma: The Cultural
See Constance
HistoryofSmell (London, 1993).

67.
Classen,
1961), p. 257.
Anthony
?Wood,
The
Life and Times
of Anthony
? Wood,
L. Powys,
ed.
(London,
MUSEUM MANNERS 913

68.
1970), p. 8
69. del visited
See,
for example,
Michael
Levy, A
Brief History
of theNational
Gallery
(London,
Museum (Athens, British OH, of the

70. 71. Miller, The That Noble account Cabinet,
in 1710, p. 181. When Von Uffenbach, London the composer George Frederic Han in 1740 he carelessly placed his buttered muffin on a precious manu Sloane script, incurring the anger of his host. See Edward Miller, That Noble Cabinet: A History
1974), pp. 38-9.
p. 26.
of this visit can be found
19-20. Overlooking as a sign that Sloane's exhibited 72. 73.
at once. De
in Hudson, Social History ofMuseums, pp. the symbolism of this carefully prepared royal feast, De Beer sees it its space so that not everything could be collection had outgrown Beer, London Shane, Sir Hans Sloane, p. 133.
Von Uffenbach, De Beer, Sir Hans
in 1710, p. 187. pp. 43, 72-73, 98, 110
land and sea turtles were delicacies and many of them ended up in the pot 74. "[B]oth ... inmuseums and their carapaces Iguana skins and crocodile heads were often survivors of meals." Wilma in the Seventeenth "Alive or Dead: Collections George, Zoological inThe Origins of in Sixteenth and Seventeenth Museums: The Cabinet ofCuriosities Century," Cenury 75. Europe, Oliver Impey and Arthur MacGregor, eds. (Oxford, 1985), p. 184.
David Murray, Museums: Their History and Use 1904), vol. 1, pp. 40, 50, (Glagow, Horns: Medicinal and Unicorns' in Early 73; Ken Arnold, "Skulls, Mummies Chemistry in Enlightening the British: Knowledge, Discovery and the in the Museum English Museums," Eighteenth Century, 2003. (London, 76. Edward Brown R.G.W Anderson, M.L. Caygill, A. MacGegor and L. Syson, eds.
inAn Account 77.
records drinking out of a unicorn's horn kept in a Dutch collection (London, 1671), p. 19. of Several Travels through a Great Part of Germany
in Romeo and Juliet had "in his needy Even Shakespeare's impoverished apothecary shop a tortoise hung/ An alligator stuff'd and other skins/ Of ill-shaped fishes." Act 5, scene 1, lines 42-44 78. 79. See further Arnold, "Skulls, Mummies and Unicorns' Horns."
Robert Hooke, The Posthumous Works R. Waller, ed. (London, of Robert Hooke, 1971 ), p. 335. For a history of the Royal Society's Repository, which was one of the tourist attractions of seventeenthsee Michael and eighteenth-century London, Hunter, Estab 1989), 80. 81. 82. ch. 4.
New Science:The Experienceof the the lishing Early Royal Society (Woodbridge,Suffolk,
Cited Hooke, in De Beer, Sir Hans Sloane, pp. 109-10.
Works,
p. 36. ... (London, A. Millar, are also recorded in this
Thomas Birch, The History of the Royal Society of London 1756), vol. Ill, pp. 486, 489. A number of similar experiments work. See also Evelyn, Diary, vol. IV, p. 278.

Evelyn, Diary, vol. IV, p. 252. Arnold provides an excellent in "Skulls, Mummies sensory practices of the New Philosophers which led me to several of the citations above. 83. 84. 85. Robert See Plot, The Natural Classen 1998). in 1710, pp. 24, 31. of sensuous in Empire History ofOxford-shire of Angels: (London, Cosmology,
summer 2007
overview of the multi Horns," and Unicorns'
1677), Gender
pp. 7-16, and
93-94.
Constance
The Color
theAesthetic
Imagination 86. 87. David 88.
(New York,
Von Uffenbach,
Oxford
"The Death
For a history of the marginalization of the Sensuous Chemist," Howes, ed. (Oxford, 2005):
see Lissa Roberts, experimentation of the Senses: The Sensual Culture Reader,
106-127. Social History
See
Constance to 2000,
from 1300
in Encyclopedia "The Senses," Classen, of European Peter Steams, ed. (New York, 2001): 355-364.
89. Von Uffenbach, Oxford in 1710, p. 31

in the Museum," in The Book of Touch, Constance 90. See Constance "Touch Classen, of various for a discussion factors ed. (Oxford, 2005): 275-286, Classen, pp. 282-284 to the rise in importance of the non-visual of sight and the decline which contributed senses in the museum experience.
of religious of the destruction inHall, 101. For a vivid description 91. Cited Sculpture, in revolutionary France see Louis-Sebastian Picture Mercier,The objects and monuments trans. and 225 W E. Paris & the Revolution, (London, 1929), pp. Jackson, Before After of 229. 92. His Museum: See Miller, That Noble Cabinet, ch.7; Tony Bennett, The Birth of the A. Auerbach, The Great Exhibition of 1995), ch. 2; Jeffrey tory,Theory, Politics (London, 1851 (New Haven, CT, 1999), pp. 128-9. Cited
this scene with the inTeather, and Its Traditions," p. 4. Compare "Museology disorder and sensory confusion which reputedly reigned in the early years of the "Not only were the pictures crowded on the walls, but the crowding of visitors Gallery: of food, the general (who often were merely sheltering from the rain), their consumption a zoo of the Gallery." to make smell and the influx of smoky air, all contributed Levy, National Gallery, p. 8. Brief History of the 93. public

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Museum Manners: The Sensory Life of the Early Museum Author(s): Constance Classen Source: Journal of Social History,

MUSEUM MANNERS: THE SENSORY LIFE OF THE EARLY MUSEUM

exhibit at theVictoria & Albert Museum

challenging interactive exhibitions.

inLondon.)2 Yet such exhibitions are

One of themost difficult subjects foran historian to investigate is that of the

bent, and one arm extended, source of information is the

seen the customs to have enough note of them as curiosities. From

of their youth the recollections

journal of social history

example, cannot tell us that a dutiful daughter in the eighteen-hundreds might

to the end of the eighteenth century. While

visual perception often played a

hands on. This

is confirmed by a 1710 account of a visit to theAshmolean

preceded them, in fact, seemed to be their ability to offervisitors an intimate

hands, Norbert to characterize the

people something at which to look as theywalked.16 Although

and eighteenth actvities. Celia

as today, museum com for example,

ken of": a portrait ofCharles

I inwhich "the whole lines of face hand and gar

journal of social history

Wormwood From Fiennes'

museum. manual may

many visitors visitors

as guests might be guided through a private collection by a host. Alllowing

from 1760 in which

the underkeeper of the Ashmolean

on an expected mark of courtesy comes out clearly of the host. This

Contemporary notions of civility evidently included being allowed to handle

Handling tors balanced

practices of the day. Itwas noted of theAshmolean

in 1753, for example, that

that theyhad no reservations regarding the interaction of visitorswith exhibits.

concern. In order to minimize

the risk of theft the first statutes of the Ash

the doors be closed behind them.23The displacement of (more or less) carefully

Though incidents with

the gem in this case was such as this would have

returned put a quick

to the museum, end tactile to hands-on access

tours. Yet of suf

as late as 1827 theAshmolean

regulations allowed visitors to handle artefacts

the amount touching one

engagement possible. so commonplace, commonplace

the indications However, as to escape customarily

not. That place was the Chapel

of St. Edward the Confessor

journal of social history

the crown were tame others, not

apparently the Tower

that you can evidently,

perfect safety."31 For Von involved handling.

such was the statue ofHenry VII which impressedmany

out by the use

to the eye. Visitors

representations stone?a hard ever, have been