THE Bowes Museum in Barnard Castle has opened a six-month exhibition inspired by its iconic and most loved object, the Silver Swan.
The show is about celebrating the beauty and artistry of movement and features automata and kinetic art. Also on display is Charles Babbage’s Difference Engine, the forerunner of computers.
Entitled The Magic of the Silver Swan, the show highlights some of the genius of Joseph Merlin, the mechanic who designed the movements of the Silver Swan.
Objects he invented, such as a type of rotisserie oven, a set of scales, and a “gouty chair” (a wheelchair propelled by winches on the chair arms) have been loaned from collections, among them the Science Museum, British Museum, V&A Museum, as well as Paris’ Metropolitan Museum of Arts and Crafts.
Inventiveness is at the heart of the exhibition’s display which contains items from the historical to the contemporary.
The Bowes Museum’s director of programmes and collections Vicky Sturrs, oversaw the show’s display.
She said: “This exhibition is a celebration of our most iconic object the Silver Swan. It is the 250th celebration year of the first time it was seen in public.
“The gallery exhibition is celebrating everything to do with movement. We have automata, kinetic art and moving images.”
Renovation is needed on the Silver Swan before it can be operated again.
Ms Sturrs said: “We have a funding bid in place where we are hoping to raise the required £250,000 to restore the swan to its moving pride and glory.”
To go alongside the swan, there are interactive works from the Cabaret Mechanical Theatre, a “frivolity and excess” area, as well an invention and clockwork section which includes some 19th century tin toys. The list of artists on show include, Tobias Bradford, Bruce Lacey, Rebecca Moss, Helen Pailing, Kinnari Saraiya and Yinka Shonibare.
The Silver Swan has been at the museum since its opening in 1892. It was first recorded in James Cox’s museum in 1777 as a crowd puller. Nearly 100 years after it was made, it went on tour to Paris in 1867 where it was first spotted by the future founders of The Bowes Museum; John and Josephine Bowes. It was another six years when the couple purchased the classic piece for the sum of 5,000 francs (£200) about £25,000 in today’s money – the most they paid for any object for the museum.
American writer Mark Twain came across the Silver Swan on his travels and wrote about it: “I watched the Silver Swan, which had a living grace about his movement and a living intelligence in his eyes – watched him swimming about as comfortably and unconcernedly as it had been in a morass instead of a jeweller’s shop.”
Ms Sturrs said “We are expecting a rise in attendance at the museum due to the impressive items on show.”
The exhibition runs until January 7 next year. The museum is open daily 10am to 5pm. For tickets call the museum on 01833 690606.
