Collection: Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery

Collection-level records:

• Collection history (Collection development policy)

  Founded in 1807, The Hunterian is Scotland’s oldest public museum and home to one of the largest collections outside the National Museums and is the largest university museum in Scotland. The Hunterian is one of the leading university museums in the UK and its collections have been Recognised as a Collection of National Significance. The Hunterian collections are built on Dr William Hunter’s founding bequest of 1783, which included paintings, prints, manuscripts, books, coins, natural history specimens, ethnographic objects and an extensive anatomical teaching collection. The manuscripts, books and some of the prints are now held in the Special Collections of the University Library. The Hunterian’s collections have grown over the last 200 year to include: scientific instruments used by James Watt, Joseph Lister and Lord Kelvin; outstanding Roman artefacts from the Antonine Wall; major earth and life sciences holdings; one of the world’s greatest numismatic collections; ethnographic and natural history objects from Captain Cook’s Pacific voyages; art collections including Old Masters, the world’s largest permanent display of the work of James McNeill Whistler and the largest single holding of the work of Charles Rennie Mackintosh.

  Source: Collection development policy

  Date: Not known

  Licence: CC BY-NC

• Collection overview (Collection development policy)

  Art Collections

  (42,000 objects – decorative and applied art – 1,745; drawings – 1,300; oils – 970; prints – 36,000; sculpture – 130; watercolours – 1,000)

  When the Hunterian opened in 1807 the presence of Hunter’s cabinet of pictures meant that it was the first museum in Britain with a gallery of paintings, although two paintings, a copy of Raphael’s Entombment and a Martyrdom of St Catherine by Jan Cossiers had been acquired by the University in 1776. Hunter’s collection included 30 old masters, mainly Dutch and Flemish, but with interesting Italian and French works. The important masterpieces are Chardin’s Lady taking Tea, a large canvas by Philips Koninck which is one of the finest examples of his panoramic landscape paintings, and a fine Still Life with Dead Game by Frans Snyders. Among Hunter’s smaller paintings are Rembrandt’s oil sketch for the Entombment, a head study by Rubens, a painting on copper by Simon Vouet, and a group of paintings from the circle of Guido Reni, including a fine version of the Virgin Sewing. A further 26 Dutch and Flemish pictures were given in 1963 by Miss Ina Smillie, which extended the range of still life and genre painting and included a major work, Artemisia by Erasmus II Quellinus. There are also fine portraits by Mor, Sanchez-Coello, and Michele di Ridolfo di Ghirlandaio.

  The Hunterian houses the major collection of the work of the Scottish architect and designer, Charles Rennie Mackintosh (1868–1928), centred on the architect’s Estate and the Davidson Gift of 1945. Following Davidson’s death in 1945, the Mackintoshes’ heir Sylvan McNair transferred ownership of the Estate to the University of Glasgow. The Estate included over 800 works on paper and a small but important archive of photographs, papers and publications. The collection provides in-depth representation of all aspects of Mackintosh’s output, including furniture and interior design, architecture, graphic design and watercolour painting. Highlights include the reassembled principal interiors of the Mackintosh’s Glasgow house, presented as The Mackintosh House, a permanent installation within the Art Gallery. It is complemented by strong holdings of the work of Margaret and Frances Macdonald and J. Herbert McNair, and representative examples of works by other Glasgow Style designers, including Annie French, Jessie M. King and George Walton. Whistler’s art is represented by 80 oils, several hundred drawings and watercolours, and more than 2,000 impressions of his prints. The holding provides a particularly good representation of Whistler’s late work and his portraiture. In addition the Collection includes furniture, silver and ceramics, an extensive holding of the artist’s materials, and a varied group of personalia.

  The Hunterian also houses significant collections of works by the Glasgow Boys and Scottish Colourists. The Glasgow Boys collections consist of some 200 paintings and drawings from their early careers to their later, more established years. The exceptional collection of paintings by the Scottish Colourists represents most aspects of their art, from landscape to still life and from Peploe and Cadell’s sparkling representations of Iona to Fergusson’s portrayal of women. With more than a hundred paintings, drawings, prints and sculptures, it is among the best collections of their work and includes Fergusson’s Les Eus, one of the most important Scottish paintings of the period.

  The collection of about 40,000 prints, with an emphasis on works of art, covers the history of printmaking from the 15th century to the present day. The holdings of Dürer and early German engraving are good. Holdings of Italian prints from 1500-1700 are very good, with broad coverage, and fine examples of prints by most important masters provided by the collection of the political economist Professor W.R. Scott (1868-1940). The 18th century is represented by portraiture and caricature. Holdings of 19th and early 20th century prints are strongest in the area of the etching revival, with particularly good holdings of prints by and after J.M.W.Turner. The modern and contemporary collection is distinguished by its breadth, with good representation of 20th century Scottish artists. Prints were a part of the legacy from William Hunter’s founding bequest in 1783. While his collection, especially bound volumes of prints, and loose anatomical drawings, is mainly located in the Special Collections Department of Glasgow University Library there are eight volumes of Hunter’s prints are in The Hunterian, together with several intact volumes from historic print collections (notably that of the Duke of Essex).

  In addition there are approximately 1200 drawings of all periods, including a few old master drawings, but British works from the 18th century onwards are more numerous. There are small holdings of decorative art, furniture, sculpture and modern and contemporary works of art.

  Historical Collections

  Archaeology and World Cultures

  (Archaeology – 51,000 objects; World Cultures – 2,500 objects)

  Strengths include Roman material from the Antonine Wall and the periods of military occupation in the first and second centuries AD; finds from excavations at brochs and other settlements of the Scottish Iron Age; human activity in both Scotland and Western Europe from the earliest hunters and fishermen to medieval times; smaller bodies of material from the early civilisations of Egypt and the Mediterranean world. Ethnographic collection includes early contact material from the pioneering voyages of Captain James Cook and that acquired on Pacific Islands by missionaries in the 19th century.

  The Roman collection in the Hunterian Museum dates back to the late 17th century, when the third Marquis of Montrose presented a stone made by the Twentieth Legion, found at Old Kilpatrick at the western side of the Antonine Wall, to the Old College of the University of Glasgow. The Hunterian Museum now holds the pre-eminent collection of Roman artefacts in Scotland, and the Antonine Wall became part of the Frontiers of the Roman Empire World Heritage Site in July 2008. The Legionary stones, or “distance slabs”, found on the Antonine Wall record the length of wall completed by the various legions. Of the nineteen known, seventeen are in the Hunterian Museum. This body of material is unique and nothing similar has been found on any other frontiers of the Roman Empire. Other stones found on the line of the wall include tombstones and altars giving important information about the people who manned, and interacted with, the Roman forts.

  University and General History

  (2,600 objects)

  The Hunterian houses three-dimensional documentary objects of famous staff and students at what is Britain fourth, and Scotland’s second oldest university founded in 1451. There are fitments and fragments from the structure of the ‘Old College’ built in the 17th century and demolished in 1870 when the University relocated to the Gilmorehill campus. Star items include the University’s silver-gilt mace dating from 1465, the silver Loving Cup and Quaich and the 18th century Blackstone Chair once used for oral examinations. The historical collection includes medieval and modern pottery, Scottish and English glass and pewter, medallions by James and William Tassie, and death-masks.

  Numismatics

  (70,000 objects)

  The Hunterian houses one of the world’s great, and Scotland’s premier, collections containing coins, medals, tokens and related objects. About half is the original Hunter collection put together at the end of the 18th century, when it was second only in importance to the French Royal Collection. It contains Ancient Greek, Roman, Medieval and Modern coins as well as medals from the Renaissance to contemporary Scotland. Many of these are unique or extremely rare and most are in superb condition.

  Scientific Collections

  Scientific Instruments

  (5,000 objects)

  The Hunterian cares for a large collection of scientific and medical instruments accumulated from the 17th century onwards as a result of research and teaching activities in the University. Notable amongst the instruments are those worked on by James Watt including the model Newcomen Engine said to be the inspiration for his development of steam power. The collection of research and demonstration apparatus gathered together by Lord Kelvin is probably the most important single collection since it includes apparatus used in his pioneering research into electricity, telegraphy and thermodynamics. There are items used or created by Hunter, Joseph Lister, James Prescott Joule, Frederick Soddy and other leading scientists, as well as significant collections of items used for observing and measuring such as telescopes, microscopes and mechanical calculators. Recent acquisitions include the tide gauges designed by James Deas and used for a century to record the tides along the River Clyde.

  Anatomy and Medical

  (7,000 specimens)

  These collections are a unique medical teaching material amassed by Hunter in his career as anatomist, obstetrician and doctor. They differ from other parts of The Hunterian Collection in that they represent things which Hunter and his school made and used professionally rather than acquired for leisure interests. The collections comprise wet preparations of human tissues and organs, skeletal material and some animal taxidermy specimens. Both Pathology and Anatomy also have considerable amounts of post-Hunter material and this includes comparative (animal) anatomy specimens, fine 19th century wax models and specimens made using recent techniques such as corrosion and plastination.

  Some of the most striking specimens in the Anatomy collection are those associated with Hunter’s research leading to his most significant contributions to the advancement of medicine. Outstanding examples include the series of life size plaster casts of dissections showing the pregnant uterus, as illustrated in Hunter’s great work, ‘The Anatomy of the Gravid Uterus Exhibited in Figures’ (1774). Hunter contributed a great deal to the understanding of the lymphatic system and his mercury-injected preparations of lymphatic tissue are both beautiful and illuminating.

  Mineralogy and Petrology

  (162,500 specimens)

  The Hunterian Museum holds over 120,000 rock and mineral specimens, with around 40,000 rock thin sections, as well as around 1500 cut gemstones, and 70 meteorites. The mineral collections include several very important older collections including those of William Hunter (one of the few surviving 18th century mineral collections anywhere), Thomas Brown of Lanfine (Scottish and world minerals), Frederick Eck (South American, and world minerals), James “Paraffin” Young (world-wide), Frank Rutley (world-wide; the author of ‘Rutley’s Elements of Mineralogy’), and Alexander Thoms (mostly Scottish), plus many more. Particular areas of strength include Leadhills-Wanlockhead minerals, Scottish Carboniferous zeolites, greenockite, old East European mining localities, old South American mining districts, Australian gold deposits, and gemstones.

  The rock collections include much material resulting from the research activities of Glasgow University geologists over the past two centuries. Particular strengths include Antarctic and sub-Antarctic islands; Iceland, Jan Mayen and Spitzbergen; Bernard Leake’s extensive Connemara rock collections, the geology of Mull, JW Gregory collections including Yunnan, Burma, Peru, and Australia, meteorites (including the High Possil meteorite which fell in Glasgow in 1804); GW Tyrrell’s collections from the USSR, Iceland, and Scotland; building stones, Alex Herriot’s collection of magnificent thin-sections and rocks, and a huge range of other research, teaching and display rocks from around the world.

  Palaeontology

  (152,000 specimens)

  The catalogued palaeontological collections at the Hunterian include over 10,000 fossil plants, 10,000 vertebrates, 50,000 corals, 5,000 graptolites, 10,000 trilobites, 6,000 other arthropods, 40,000 molluscs, 10,000 microfossils, 5,000 brachiopods, 9,000 echinoderms, 10,000 thin sections of plants and other fossils, and several thousand Type and figured fossils.

  Important acquisitions include the first discovered Scottish dinosaurs from the 1980s and dinosaur material collected by the famous Georgian general practitioner, Gideon Mantell. Other key collectors from whom material had been acquired include Alfred Leeds (Jurassic of Peterborough), the Reverend David Ure (earliest figured fossils from (1793)). The trilobite collection is one of the most important in the World, with research collections built up over the last 200 years from collectors and researchers in including Mrs Gray, Dr Keith Ingham, and George Rae. The George Rae bequest includes over 6,000 specimens of ammonites, fish, plants, but mostly trilobites.

  Zoology

  (Entomology – 518,000 specimens; Zoology – 73,200 specimens)

  The Zoology collections represent most of the major groups of animals but with particular strength in the insects. The historical core of the collection is Hunter’s natural history material of which shells, insects and corals survive today some specimens from which are associated with major 18^th century figures such as Captain Cook, Joseph Banks, Johann Christian Fabricius and Daniel Solander. Reflecting its growth as a University teaching and reference collection, there is broad coverage of the animal kingdom with good mammalian osteology and a spirit collection of several thousand specimens representing mainly invertebrates and the lower vertebrates. The entomology collections were enhanced in the mid-20th century by two major donations, of foreign Coleoptera from T.G.Bishop and the British insects of JJFX King. University staff added significant material in the areas of economic, medical and regional (Scottish) entomology. Other notable study collections include John Graham Kerr’s South American lungfish, world Mollusca, Himalayan bird skins and the Hansell collection of animal artefacts (the National Bird Nest Reference Collection, insect nests and other constructions).

  Source: Collection development policy

  Date:

  Licence: CC BY-NC