Carys took part in a one-week curatorial research micro-internship in March 2022, hosted by the University of Oxford National Trust Partnership team and co-supervised by National Trust Property Curator, Dr Miranda Garrett.
Having never come across Tyntesfield, a Gothic revival treasure in the National Trust’s care, I was excited to start my micro-internship looking at old Victorian and Edwardian photographs of the property to identify what items of furniture have remained in the collection. The task was a challenging one, owing to the quality of the photographs and the densely furnished nature of the rooms, but it was nonetheless a rewarding week-long project.
Using the National Trust online collections to search through the 26,275 entries attached to the house, I quickly became aware of the benefits to using precise key words to filter down the results. Each find became an exciting moment – I never thought I would be so thrilled to identify a woven wastepaper bin, my first identification, but suddenly it was the highlight of my morning. Once I began more matches became apparent, which I then transcribed into an excel spreadsheet. I also used the identifications to create annotated photographs especially focusing on annotating the locations of oil paintings to help with any potential rehanging of works. When photographs were taken in dim lighting, or reflections obscured the majority of the artwork, this sometimes involved using a magnifying glass to try and see the smallest of details that would reveal the painting’s identity, looking for shapes of light and dark areas I could match to works within the current collection.
It was a pleasure to spend time looking both at the photographs of Tyntesfield’s interiors and the photographic collection entries on the National Trust’s website. Photographs of the house gave an insight into a time long gone, revealing the international and refined tastes of the Gibbs family and painting a portrait of Tyntesfield as their family home. Whilst most of the photographs I worked with were absent of people, evidence of their lives was everywhere in the material possessions they had accumulated. Browsing through the online collection also showed me the huge breadth of the many items in the National Trust’s care. It was great to see the ornate furniture, paintings, and chandeliers that give the house its sense of grandeur recorded alongside the thousands of mundane objects from day-to-day life, as I uncovered items that previously I might not have thought of as things to be preserved. Through this project I realised their value, as when combined the extraordinary and ordinary items create a picture of what life may have been for the Gibbs family.
Looking forward, I am now excited to visit the house for the first time – and hopefully spot a few pieces of furniture that I might recognise!
Carys Owen (she/her) is a second year History of Art undergraduate at St. John's College, Oxford. Her research interests include museum architecture and the curation of contemporary art at heritage sites.
Find out more about the National Trust Partnership here.
Find out more about the TORCH Heritage Programme here.
