The emergence of the modern museum: an anthology of nineteenth-century sources

Abstract

Compendium of original sources, presenting a detailed account of the development of the museum and its practices in Britain during a crucial period of formation: the transition form private collections to public collections in museums. From poignant recollections of visits to stately homes to charged debates about the acquisition of the Elgin Marbles or the establishment of an Indian Museum; from early catalogue entries describing the curiosities discovered by Captain Cook to later ones organizing human skulls according to Darwinian principles: the volume offers a representative sample of the diverse, contentious, and often moving ideas that have shaped the modern institution. It makes available a wide range of material, including proposals for reform laid out in parliamentary papers, essays by influential theorists and curators, and accounts of museum-going in the popular press. Special attention to the British Museum and the National Gallery.