Spectacle and Display: A Modern History of Britain's Roman Mosaic Pavements

Cover
Title Page
Copyright Page
Contents Page
List of figures
Preface
Acknowledgements
Mosaics Make a Site
	Introduction
	Attitudes and sources
	Preserving antiquities in Britain
	Displaying the canon
	Beyond the antiquarian
Politics, aristocrats and antiquarians
from the earliest discoveries to taste and vertue
	Introduction: ‘The dignity of kings…’
	Curiosity and the risks of oblivion – the rise of antiquarian interest in mosaic
		1 Cyparissus and the Stag from High Cross Street, Leicester drawn by John Bridges in 1722/3 (Reproduced with the permission of the Society of Antiquaries of London).
			2 The earliest published representation of mosaic. The floor from Great Tew, illustrated by Michael Burghers for Robert Plot’s 1695 publication of the Antiquities of Oxfordshire, is represented by a single panel.
	‘The General’s Tent’ – evolving interpretations
		3 Preservation by record. A simple illustration of a mosaic panel found at Wroxeter in 1706 drawn before 1829 (Dukes ms 218, Reproduced with the permission of the Society of Antiquaries of London).
	‘rather an argument it was an apartment of a magnificent palace’ – changing perceptions
		4 Holkham Hall, Lord Leicester’s mosaic from Hadrian’s Villa at Tivoli (1712-1720) one of Lord Leicester’s acquisitions through his agent Mathew Brettingham (John Chapman, CC BY-SA 4.0).
	‘to invite gentlemen and others in the country to make researches of this nature’, the role of visitors, friends and tourists in early preservation
	‘what profit he might have got by preserving it, to show to strangers’ – the emergence of commodification.
		5 Stonesfield, Oxfordshire. Mosaic drawn in meticulous detail by Thomas Hearne and engraved by Michael Burghers in 1712 (Reproduced with the permission of the Society of Antiquaries of London).
	‘workmen, on my lord’s order, are building a wall around it that may be covered at the top’ – taste, tourism and the widening social value of mosaic on display
		6 Cotterstock illustrated by George Bogdani in Vetusta Monumenta II 1737. This mosaic was lifted and taken to Deene Park where Stukeley saw it ‘at the end of the canal in a pretty summerhouse’.
			7 The Weldon Mosaic 1738 – one of the earliest representations of a mosaic in context. Engraving by J Cole for Christopher William Hatton Viscount Hatton of Gretton (Reproduced with the permission of the Society of Antiquaries of London).
Taste, entertainment and recreation
from private patronage to popular display
	Introduction
		8 In 1796 the Society of Antiquaries was still publishing panels without a structural context in Vetusta Monumenta (Vol III, pl XXXIX). This example is from St Martins, Colchester from where it was lifted and displayed in the garden of Bragg the baker. It
	Preservation or ‘the annual engraving of the intricate involutions of a few tessellated pavements’
	...to make these curious remains better known, and more frequently visited… Preservation for display at the turn of the 19th century
	‘…company who throng to the pavement’ the impact of insular tourism
		9 By the start of the 19th century the portrayal of mosaic had entered the realms of taste and the picturesque as this engraving by Samuel Lysons reveals, published in 1801. It shows excavations at Horkstow which exposed the Chariot Race mosaic now in the
			10 William Fowler, Lysons’ rival, whilst interested in mosaics also saw them as a means of social advancement – in this print the Duke of Newcastle’s title is more prominent than the provenance of the mosaic panel at Aldborough.
			11 C A Stothard’s illustration of Bignor before the cover buildings were built (Lysons 1815 in Reliquiae Britannico Romane Vol III).
	Preservation for the people?
		12 Stowe, the Lady’s or Queen’s Temple designed by James Gibbs (1740) provides an extravagant cover building for a mosaic panel from Foscote (Daderot CC BY-SA 3.b).
			13 Foscote mosaic recovered by Richard Marquis of Chandos in 1843 and re-laid in the Queen’s Temple at Stowe. Now in the care of the National Trust.
			14 This print captures all the elements of a romantic landscape. It shows the remains of a restored mosaic in a building on Mill Hill at Castor, Northants, March 25th, 1822. Published in The Durobrivae of Antoninus, by E T Artis, the book was intended as
Guardians, caretakers and museums – mosaics in the 19th century
	Introduction
	‘on payment of a small sum’ – preservation and individual agency
		15 Bucklersbury. Roman pavement found in Poultry Street, near the Mansion House, London. (The Illustrated London News, LIV, May 29, 1869). The popularity of mosaics and their excavation was to lead to the first Ancient Monuments Act in 1879.
	Public museums
	…to the little-known and remote villa at Bignor and its magnificent pavements’.
	‘An elegant retired sylvan residence’
		16 The cover buildings at Bignor in the mid-19th century (from a print at Bignor).
	The Guide Book
		17 In the Museum of London, the Bucklersbury mosaic was initially wall mounted alongside a range of unrelated antiquities (from Sheppard 1991, Plate 65 & The Graphic, XXIX, n 753, May 3, 1884).
	Changing priorities
		18 Brading in the 1880s from the library of Lawrence Alma-Tadema (Cadbury Research Library, University of Birmingham. Alma Tadema Archive, Port folio 128B).
	An emerging profession
	The outbreak of war
The rise of the professional:
the influence of state, profession and community to the mid-20th century
	Introduction
	‘…displayed in a garden of shaven green lawns surrounded by trees – Chedworth and the National Trust
		19 Chedworth 1925 National Trust appeal for funds to buy the site for the nation.
			20 Chedworth showing the cover buildings over the west range. These were built by Lord Eldon and completed by 1869.
			21 Chedworth Postcard view of the bathhouse mosaics.
			22 Bignor illustrated in 1930 by Robert Gurd. The drawing, which closely follows C A Stothard in Lysons’ 1815 Reliquiae Britannico Romane Voll III, shows the enduring appeal of antiquarian views (Winbolt and Herbert 1930: 8).
			23 Bignor. The reality in 1938 (author’s collection).
	Rise of the professional
		24 Verulamium 1930. The cover illustration of Still Digging published in 1955, this image also illustrated the rear cover of Wheeler’s biography by Jacquetta Hawkes (1982).
	Preservation in war and peace
		25 Kings Weston, Bristol. The austere timber cover building, built in the 1950s, protects the mosaics from the Kings Weston and Brislington villas.
			26 Kings Weston, Bristol. The villa at Kings Weston was excavated between 1947 and 1949 and the cover building constructed in the early 1950s. In the foreground is the mosaic from Room VII and in the distance is a mosaic from the nearby villa at Brislingt
	Discovering Fishbourne  ‘…the success story of post-war British archaeology’
Crises and response 1970s – 1990s
	Introduction
	Crisis
	Further research – mosaics and the re-evaluation of Roman art
	Academia and the tourist canon
	Conservation
	Back then in the 1970s, museums were, he remembered, ‘mostly dreary places: dusty, impenetrable’
		27 The Bucklersbury mosaic forming part of a tableau in the Museum of London in 2009. The origin of this image lies with the excavations at Pompeii and is a popular trope in museum display.
	Conservation ascendant
The Most Spectacular Roman Remains in Britain
	Introduction
	Mitigating the effects of development? – Preservation in the late 20th century
	Display: the museum as impresario
		28 Hull and East Riding Museum. Wall mounted mosaic in a set piece unprecedented in Roman period practice. ‘Romani ite domum’ (Romans go home) is the corrected Latin phrase for the graffito ‘Romanes eunt domus’ from a scene in the film Monty Python’s Life
			29 Corinium Museum. The austere entrance hall ‘coveys an unquestioned and established past’ (Swain 2004: 244)
			30 Bignor cover buildings, showing the refurbished range in 2015 (Poliphilo CC0).
The glory of Rome? – Mosaics in the face of uncertainty 2000-2016
	Introduction
		31 The Croughton Mosaic. The effect of a single seasons ploughing on the mosaic illustrates the vulnerability of pavements to modern agriculture (©Historic England).
	Preservation as long term management
		32 The proposed cover building at Croughton, designed by Philip Wagner, of Philip Wagner Architects, London, in the local vernacular. The building was designed to complement the agricultural buildings of the area rather than reflect the Roman period of th
	Looks familiar – floorspace and the vertical mosaic
		33 Reading City Museum. Wall mounted mosaic from Silchester displayed in the same space as the Aldermaston pottery of Alan Gaiger-Smith. It explicitly poses the question: ‘mosaic, art or craft?’
			34 Wall mounted artwork. The mosaic fragment from Little Minster Street, Winchester. Winchester Museum staircase in 2005 illustrates the difficulty of displaying small mosaic panels.
			35 Winchester Museum. The Sparsholt Mosaic displayed in a sunken wooden frame. Although the signage provides a brief introduction to the original findspot the prominent photograph of the panel being transported to the Museum in 1969 highlights the novelty
			36 Colliton Park cover building at Dorchester, designed by John Stark and Partners of Dorchester and built in 1996 (David Smith CC-BY-SA/2.0).
			37 Dorset Museum, Dorchester. Floor set mosaics from a villa at Olga Road (Geni, CC BY-SA 4.0).
			38 Hull and East Riding Museum. A Rudston mosaic awkwardly placed in the Saxon gallery in 2008. Note the prow of the long ship to the left.
			39 Peterborough Museum. The mosaic floor which was removed from Orton Longueville in 1992 may have originally come from Castor (though Neal and Cosh 2002 think it may be from Chesterton). The display reflects the enduring popularity of the Pompeian drawin
			40 Mosaics in public places. In several locations such as this café at Stanwick Lakes, Northamptonshire, mosaic panels are wall hung as a ‘spectacular’ display. The panel is a symbol of the archaeological expertise in rescuing the mosaic prior to quarryin
			41 Brading cover building (Simon Perry CC BY-SA 4.0).
			42 Interior of the cover building at Brading (Nilfanion CC BY-SA/3.0).
			43 Chedworth 2015. The modern cover building over the west range.
			44 Chedworth the museum /hunting lodge and modern cover building over the west range (Nilfanion CC BY-SA 3.0).
			45 Chedworth in 2007. A contested environment in which the mosaics are prominent but compete with the popularity of the military at the National Trust’s ‘oldest stately home’.
			46 Chedworth in 2012. Interior of the new cover building. Steel walkways provide access to view the mosaics but preclude any sense of their domestic scale.
			47 The modern cover building at Littlecote was built in the late 1990s, re-designed by W Liddiard (Aldbourne) Ltd. Ian Keel the builder received the Master Builder of the Year Building Excellence Award in 2000. (MG 0901)
			48 Littlecote in 2008. The Orpheus mosaic displayed beneath the cover building. Although the signage provides an interpretation of the mosaic’s iconography, there is no reference to the extensive restoration (CCPrzemysław Jahr 2008).
			49 The Bancroft mosaic at the Centre, Milton Keynes in 2005. The wall mounted mosaic was originally displayed adjacent to the central courtyard with the central damaged section restored. An early contribution to place making.
	Trading places
		50 The Bancroft mosaic, Milton Keynes moved to a more prominent position in October 2011. The mosaic was found during excavations in the 1970s and the site can be visited in North Loughton Valley Park. Although removed from its original context and in a m
	Moving on
		51 The modern cover building at St Albans, built in 2004. It protects a mosaic from Insula IV, Building 8, room 6/7. A modernist interpretation, the building conveys little sense of the Roman period.
			52 St Albans, the interior of the cover building with the mosaic from building 8. This mosaic remains in situ but other floors from the same building are in Verulamium Museum.
Postscript
	Introduction
	‘Experts turning cartwheels in the field’ – value in the 21st century: preservation, conservation and policy
	Heritage, civic pride and audience
	Dynamic Curation
		53 The 1970s cover building at Fishbourne (mattbuck CC BY-SA 4.0).
			54 Fishbourne showing the Cupid on a dolphin mosaic and the public walkways which indicate the excavation stopped in time character of the display.
			55 Fishbourne 2018. The display of further mosaics from the West Wing of the palace recovered from gardens beyond the area of the museum illustrates the problem associated with representing the palace at a particular moment in time.
			56 Fishbourne 2007. The additional re-positioning of the Fortress mosaic (not illustrated) and the mosaic from North Street Chichester and the Chilgrove Villa (above) shows how Fishbourne’s character is moving towards a museum of mosaics.
			57 Fishbourne in 2018, the Pompeii drawing room.
			58 Leicester Jewry Wall Museum display in 2007. The Peacock Mosaic is juxtaposed with the Blue Boar Lane wall paintings. In the foreground is the Blackfriars mosaic discovered in 1830, covered when the Great Central Railway was built in the 1890s and move
			59 Leicester Jewry Wall Museum proposed re-design in 2017 (Leicester City Council Press release designs by Imagemakers Design & Consultancy Ltd).
			60 Leicester Jewry Wall Museum proposed re-design in 2017 (Leicester City Council Press release designs by Imagemakers Design & Consultancy Ltd).
	Digital turn
Bibliography
Index
Back cover