Curator & Collector

Recreated face of Johann Sebastian Bach; image borrowed from University of Dundee

J.S. Bach’s face has been recreated by forensic experts in Scotland. According to the CBC, the recreation reveals a “rather portly, jovial-looking gentleman.” We knew this all along, of course, and think it a great pity that his most famous work, the Toccata and Fugue, is associated with horror movies; we find it a positively joyful piece. J.S. Bach, along with Frenchmen Gabriel Faure and Maurice Durufle, is our favourite composer, and we love pretty much everything we’ve ever heard by him.The recreation was carried out by the Scottish Centre for Forensic and Medical Art at Dundee, which had been commissioned by the Bachhaus Museum in Germany. Dr Caroline Wilkinson led the team of experts, who used a bronze cast of Bach’s skull and laser technology to recreate the face of the greatest composer of the Baroque period. The team also used a copy of the only portrait that the composer ever sat for, as well as contemporary historical documents. The image above was taken from the official press release of the University of Dundee.
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Since we find ourselves on the subject of UK museums, we note the controversy currently brewing in British museums. The Museums Association, which represents 1500 museums in Britain, is recommending that museums get rid of artworks and artefacts that they rarely display. “Wonderful collections can become a burden unless they are cleared of unused objects,” said Mark Taylor, Museums Association director, while Roy Strong, a former director of the Victoria and Albert Museum, also agrees, saying museums “can’t keep piling up the stuff forever.” On the other hand, Hugh Leggatt, the Former Museums and Galleries Commissioner, has argued that donors will be wary about donating works to museums if the latter is likely to sell them in the future. The signature case for this issue is the Watts Gallery, which is seeking to auction The Triumph of Love by Sir Edward Burne-Jones and Jasmine by Albert Moore, estimated to be worth about $2.75 million. The purpose is to raise money “to repair a leaky roof at the museum.”

Our position on this inclines to Mr. Taylor and Mr. Strong’s position: museums need to be able to focus on the artefacts that are in line with their collecting policies. Most museums, too, cannot display more than a fraction of the items in their collections. On the other hand, this opens up a whole kettle of fish. Clearly, if this policy is expected to work, the onus is placed on museums to hire only curators and directors who can actually appreciate the historical collecting strategies and pieces they are working with. Then, too, the fact that most museums have far less display space than needed for their artefacts can lead to innovative solutions like that seen in the University of British Columbia’s Museum of Anthropology, where storage is “visible storage.” The problem the Watts Gallery is experiencing highlights a number of important issues, not least of them the importance of good fundraising; was there really no choice for the museum but to auction off two of its finer pieces in order to fix its leaky roof?