In September 2010 I received an interesting message from the Gallery’s Collections Services Manager, Penny Hughes. During an audit of the Gallery’s store, the original plinth belonging to the Gallery’s marble bust of the writer, art historian and advocate of women’s rights Anna Brownell Jameson had been discovered. The bust, by the famous Victorian sculptor John Gibson, had been on display on a modern plinth at the Gallery’s regional partner in north Wales, Bodelwyddan Castle, since 1989. Should the plinth, which was in poor condition, simply remain in store? Or should it be conserved and reunited with Mrs Jameson’s bust?…
By
Peter Funnell, Head of Research and Senior Curator
17 July 2013