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10.00.00

GVs Cambridge

Cambridge is one of the most beautiful medieval cities in England. It’s famous for its gothic architecture and as a place of learning. At its heart is the Fitzwilliam Museum, housing the University’s collections of art and antiquities

10.00.16

GVs interior Fitzwilliam Museum

The Fitzwilliam is an important academic resource, but it’s also a treasure house of human culture with magnificent artifacts from the earliest civilizations to the present day.

10.00.37

I/V Timothy Potts, Director Fitzwilliam Museum

What is extraordinary about the Fitzwilliam is both the depth of the collections, but its particularly the quality of what’s been collected that makes it one of the great universal museums of the world. Our illuminated manuscripts from the medieval period are the finest of any museum collection outside of the Vatican. The medieval coins are the finest in the world. The paintings, particularly the Italian paintings of the 16^th century the Titians, the Veronese and so on are the finest you’ll see anywhere in Britain. And that extraordinary combination of this wonderful building and the collections in it has made it one of the great treasures houses of Britain and indeed in many peoples mind the finest small museum anywhere in Europe.

10.01.27

Portrait Viscount Fitzwilliam + museum GVs

The Museum is named after its founder, Richard, 7^th Viscount Fitzwilliam of Merrion. He was a student at Cambridge during the 1760’s and had a passion for collecting books, old master prints, music, medieval manuscripts and paintings.

When he died in 1816 he bequeathed his collections to the University of Cambridge 'for the increase of learning', along with a substantial sum of money to build a Museum to house them.

Throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries the collections have grown, through gifts, bequests and purchases. Today there are more than half a million objects here.

In this programme we are going to look at four of the most celebrated: Degas' haunting picture of two women ‘At the café’, Titians 16^th century masterpiece Tarquin and Lucretia, a rare 13^th Century Gothic manuscript that once belonged to the sister of Louis the IX of France and a three thousand year old set of Egyptian coffins

10.02.39

Title: Treasures of the Fitzwilliam Museum

10.02.49

Title: The Coffins of Nespawershefyt

10.02.54

Var. Shots of Hieroglyphs on nespawershefyt coffins and black and white archive photos.

During the 18^th and 19^th Centuries it was fashionable among young British gentlemen to embark on what was known as the Grand Tour of Europe and, often, the Near East. This gave them an opportunity to experience at first hand the remains of great civilizations.

It was after one such tour in 1822 that a couple of young Cambridge scholars presented the University with an unusual gift from their travels – a 3,000 year old set of Egyptian coffins. How they came to be in the hands of two young students no one quite knows, but their exquisite decoration and beautiful craftsmanship make them an undisputed treasure of the Fitzwilliam museum.

10.03.51

I/V Helen Strudwick, Senior Assistant Keeper, Antiquities.

The coffins of Nespawershefyt are one of the main treasures, as far as I am concerned, of the Fitzwilliam Museum. They are just a beautiful example of the workmanship of the coffin makers at the period that Nespawershefyt had his coffins made.

10.04.06

Var. shots Nespawershefyt coffins

Nespawershefyt was an important temple official who died around one thousand BC. Egypt at this time was an extremely religious society and religious beliefs played an important part in funeral practices. Egyptians believed that they would be reborn after death as long as they could survive a series of tests and perils in the afterlife. To help them with these, scribes would paint instructions, or spells, on the coffins. These spells became known as the book of the dead.

10.04.41

I/V Helen Strudwick, Senior Assistant Keeper, Antiquities

The Book of the Dead was a document which contained lots of fantastically mysterious spells which tells us how the Egyptians thought about the afterlife and how they were to deal with the afterlife so it was actually providing them with spells that countered dangerous beasts they came across in the afterlife, answered questions provided them with the names of gods they needed to know.

10.05.04

Var. shots of details on Nespawershefyt coffins

One of the most famous spells required the deceased to recite a declaration of innocence and to have their heart weighed against divine order in front of the god Osiris, If they failed this test, their heart would be fed to the devourer, a fearsome creature that was part crocodile, part lion and part hippopotamus - shown here at the feet of Osiris.

But the coffins also provide fascinating insights about the man for whom they were made.

10.05.35

I/V Helen Strudwick, Senior Assistant Keeper, Antiquities

The name is given here and in this column as well so it starts here…. Nessie Pawer…Shefyt. The Shefyt is this rams head here. And there are two signs right at the end which reads ‘true of voice’.

10.05.52

Var. shots of details on Nespawershefyt coffins

But it is here, in a small patch of hieroglyphs that the most important clue about the man can be found - his titles. The dark shading is evidence that these have been changes at some stage, but as they appear today they tell us that Nespawershefyt was the supervisor of scribes and workshops at the temple of the god Amun in Thebes.

10.06.13

Archive footage – ruins of Thebes

Thebes had been the capital of Egypt when the empire was at its height. Today the remains of its colossal temple complexes offer a striking testimony to the power and riches this city once held.

10.06.46

I/V Helen Strudwick, Senior Assistant Keeper, Antiquities

It would have been a thriving economic center. The kings were constantly pouring money in and at the time Nespawershefyt was there the temple would have been enlarged… so there would have been extra buildings being built workmen bustling around making the walls higher adding extra buildings. Therefore Nespawershefyt would have been involved in administering some of this work that was going on so he was a key person in the temple.

10.07.11

Var. shots of details on Nespawershefyt coffins

A rich and powerful man such as Nespawershefyt would have wanted to take a record of his most prestigious titles into the afterlife. The fact that these were changed on his coffins suggests two things: Firstly that ancient Egyptians prepared their coffins well before they died: And secondly Nespawershefyt had an unexpected promotion after his coffins had been made.

10.07.48

Conservation Studio GVs

Today other secrets hidden by those ancient coffin-makers are being uncovered by Museum staff as they prepare the coffins for a new display.

10.07.58

I/V Julie Dawson, Senior Assistant Keeper, Conservation

This is a small piece from the lid of the inner coffin and its very, very nice to have the opportunity to look very closely at this because it does actually show us a great deal about the sort of quality of the work and the care that went into this particular coffin. People are very surprised when they come into the museum and they see how bright and clear the colours are on Egyptian objects and they don’t understand why they haven’t faded.

10.08.29

Archive Footage – Valley of the Kings

It’s mostly because this very small palette of colours the Egyptians were working with at this time were mostly made of mineral pigments they were the rocks beneath their feet.

10.08.43

GVs Egyptian Gallery, Fitzwilliam Museum

By commissioning these lavish coffins Nespawershefyt was hoping to achieve immortality. Perhaps, in the eyes of those visitors who come to marvel at them today, he succeeded.

10.08.56

Title: The Psalter of Isabel of France

10.09.04

GVs Psalter

A Psalter is a collection of the Psalms or religious songs from the Old Testament. They became popular during the 13^th century in Europe. Often lavishly illustrated, or illuminated, with pictures and decorated initials they provide a rare glimpse into the medieval world.

10.09.31

I/V Stella Panayotova, Keeper of manuscripts and Printed Books.

When you think about it no painting, sculpture, stained glass, frescoes survive in such large numbers and in such exquisite condition. You turn the pages and the gold shimmers; the pigments are as fresh as they ever were. It is a real tribute to the scribes, the artists the patrons who created this treasure of a book in the mid thirteenth century.

10.09.58

GVs of other manuscripts in Fitzwilliam Collection

The Fitzwilliam contains the largest and finest collection of medieval and Renaissance manuscripts in any museum outside of the Vatican. It was begun with a bequest from Fitzwilliam himself and enriched by subsequent acquisitions. The most recent being the fourteenth century Macclesfield Psalter. This displays the sumptuous virtuosity and earthy humour of medieval painting in East Anglia.

The Museum’s collection spans six centuries, from the collapse of Charlemagnes Empire in the tenth to the rise of Titian’s Venice in the sixteenth.

10.10.34

GVs Psalter

But it is the Isabel Psalter that stands out as one of the finest manuscripts from this period. It was made in Paris for Isabel sister of the King Louis IX and no expense was spared in its lavish decoration.

10.10.50

I/V Christopher de Hamal, Fellow Librarian, Corpus Christi College

Its got full page paintings of the most amazing quality, and you can turn it page after page after page of this brilliant burnished gold and you see there French gothic art at its finest.

The C13th was perhaps the greatest period of Parisian art. It really marks the beginning of gothic art the beginning of that great moment when all those cathedrals and other supremely grand buildings, the churches, the stained glass windows were being made. There was money in France in the C13th and it really shows.

10.11.20

CUs Psalter

The manuscript begins with a set of magnificent pictures depicting the lives of David and Solomon. These are followed by the calendar, which includes the births and deaths of Isobel’s family including her father, brother and mother, Blanche of Castile in 1252. The psalms follow - pages and pages of exquisite manuscript with decorated initials and beautiful line fillers.

10.11.55

I/V Stella Panayotova, Keeper of manuscripts and Printed Books.

They hated any empty spaces. These are the line fillers and here they have really gone over the top with not just completing the line of text with a beautiful painted band but actually filling the last two lines because the artist wanted to start the big picture on the next page. And they could not leave two and half lines just empty so they had to fill them up with these beautiful very busy little creatures and fantastic floral design.

10.12.24

CUs Psalter

Isabel died in 1272. Her book remained in the French Royal library for at least another hundred years, but is then lost until it surfaces in the middle of the nineteenth century in the hands of a London book collector. This was a moment when the book was almost lost forever

10.12.45

I/V Christopher de Hamal, Fellow Librarian, Corpus Christi College

We tend to think of these manuscripts as more or less indestructible but there was a moment in the 1850s when this book very nearly did not survive at all. It belonged to John Boycott Jarmen the 19thC London jeweler.

He kept his books in the cellar and on the 3^rd August 1846, middle of summer there was a freak hailstorm. And the Tiburn river which runs underground there flooded his basement, absolute tragedy and all the books got wet and if you look at the manuscript you can see extraordinary damage of water round all the margins particularly in the second half of the book

10.13.24

Archive photos and CU’s Psalter

Boycott-Jarman repaired the book as best he could and then sold it to John Ruskin, the 19^th Century social commentator and artist. Ruskin liked the pages of Gothic manuscripts so much that he cut some of them out and gave them to his friends and pupils. After his death in 1900 a future director of the Fitzwilliam Museum, Sydney Cockerell, undertook the enormous task of recovering the missing pages from across the world. Later he launched an unprecedented fundraising campaign to buy the book for the Museum.

It’s due to the extraordinary efforts of Sydney Cockerell that the Isabel Psalter survives in the form it does today. And despite the water damaged pages it is still a near matchless example of French Gothic art from the royal court of Louis the 9^th; a tangible thread to a bygone age and to the moment when Paris, for the first time became the cultural capital of Europe.

10.14.30

Title: Titian’s Tarquin and Lucretia

10.14.34

CU details of Tarquin and Lucretia

Tarquin and Lucretia is one of the great, late works by the Italian Renaissance artist Tiziano Vecellio, better known as Titian. It depicts the brutal confrontation between Tarquin, son of the king of Rome, and the virtuous Lucretia wife of a nobleman. Tarquin threatens to kill her and her servant unless she submits to his desires. Reluctantly she does so, but afterwards she summons her husband and father, tells them what has happened and out of shame commits suicide.

10.15.20

I/V Duncan Robinson, Director Fitzwilliam 1995 – 2007

You’ve only got to look at picture like Tarquin and Lucretia to appreciate the richness the sensuousness of the way he handles paint. You really feast with your eyes on those surfaces which he has stroked into existence using his colour filled brushes. He’s a magical painter.

10.15.45

I/V David Scrase, Keeper Paintings, Drawings and Prints

I think it’s a painting of extraordinary beauty, of fantastic colour, a wonderful depth of characterization, of great strength and I find it absolutely extraordinary that a man late in his career, certainly 80 by the time he did it could paint still with such clarity of comprehension of what he was tying to do. If you look at the flesh of Lucretia’s body it has an opalescent colouring. This adds a contrast the reddish colour of Tarquin's knee which is further accentuated by the vermilion of his socks and by the scarlet of his trousers. Titian is a great great colorist and this painting shows that colour was the incentive to his art.

10.16.45

Archive footage - Venice

Titian was born in a village outside Venice around 1490. The Italian renaissance was at its height and when he was a boy Titian was brought into Venice to learn painting. He was apprenticed to Giovanni Bellini, at that time the city’s leading painter.

Bellini dominated Venetian painting in the late 15th century. He had adopted the use of slow drying oil paints with which he could create deep, rich tints and detailed shadings.

10.17.09

Bellini Paintings

His sumptuous colouring and fluent atmospheric landscapes had a great effect on his young pupil.

10.17.32

Archive footage – Florence.

Veneziano Painting

Earlier in the fifteenth century, artists and draughtsmen in Florence and later in Rome were experimenting with the new mathematical principles of perspective, as seen here in the Fitzwilliam’s important predella panel of The Annunciation by Domenico Veneziano, painted around 1445.

It was by drawing on these two contrasting artistic movements that Titian found a form that was to make him a superstar in his own lifetime.

10.18.10

I/V Duncan Robinson, Director Fitzwilliam 1995 – 2007

Rome is all about line and Venice is all about colour – designo coloure – Titian combines the two as no other artist does and emerges as one of the great colorists of all time.

10.18.27

Titian Paintings

When Bellini died in 1516 Titian became the undisputed master of Venetian painting. His fame soon spread beyond Venice and Italy. By the time he was forty he had the crowned heads of all Europe queuing to buy his work.

10.18.47

I/V David Scrase, Keeper Paintings, Drawings and Prints

Raphael dies young, Michelangelo didn’t paint much but Titian was the artist that everyone wanted to own a painting by.

10.18.54

Portrait Titian. Portrait Phillip 2 of Spain, Tarquin and Lucretia

Titian’s career lasted nearly sixty years and he was an old man of around eighty when he completed his picture of Tarquin and Lucretia in 1571. It was a commission for Phillip II King of Spain, Titian’s most important patron and also one the most powerful monarch’s in the world. It’s perhaps surprising then that Titian chose for his subject the story of a king’s son who rapes a defenceless woman.

10.19.21

I/V Duncan Robinson, Director Fitzwilliam 1995 – 2007

This is probably the last picture he painted for his greatest patron and it’s a picture that’s all about the abuse of power. That’s the message if you like that the great living legend of a painter in Venice sends right across Europe to the king of Spain.

10.19.42

CU details of Tarquin and Lucretia

Titian died five years after completing his painting, killed by the plague that raged through Venice in 1576. Tarquin and Lucretia is one of the finest works of his final years, and also one of the most moving. Its unsettling combination of violence and pathos and its extraordinary beauty confirms Titian, even in old age, as an artist of exceptional genius, whose use of colour and form have rarely been equaled since.

10.20.18

Title: Degas’ At the Cafe

10.20.23

CU details of ‘At the Café’

Degas was one of the most influential artists of the 19-century. He has been described as the last of the old masters, but he was also a key bridge into the era of modern art. At the Café was painted at the height of his career and depicts two women – sometimes described as prostitutes – in a moment of intense isolation and distress.

10.20.58

I/V Duncan Robinson, Director Fitzwilliam 1995 – 2007

This is a painting that is so eloquent in terms of Degas’ view of the city, of the isolation you can feel in a crowd, the loneliness that many people felt as individuals.

10.21.10

Degas pictures and sketches

The everyday people of Paris fascinated Degas. He would spend days walking the streets, visiting theatres, cafes and drawing the people who for him characterized the city’s modernity - prostitutes, musicians, dancers and their audiences.

These characters contrasted with Degas’ own privileged background. He was born into a wealthy banking family in 1834 and began studying law until a chance meeting with the portrait painter Jean Ingres convinced him to study art instead.

10.21.50

I/V Timothy Potts, Director Fitzwilliam Museum

He studied the old master in depth and spent many months sitting in the Louvre copying the old master paintings. So he had in that sense rather a traditional training, but he also wanted to go beyond that and apply the skills that he had learned to the painting of everyday life, street life in Paris. So he stopped exhibiting history works in the salon and started paintings like this of people sitting in a café, walking along the street

10.22.17

Degas pictures and sketches

Degas is often identified as one of the early impressionists, an understandable but insufficient description of his work.

10.22.27

I/V Duncan Robinson, Director Fitzwilliam 1995 – 2007

There’s a tendency to group him with the impressionists because after all he exhibited with the impressionists, he was friendly with many of them, but he was more than an impressionist. He’s really the artist of the 1870’s who establishes himself, as Beaudelaire would have said, as the painter of modern life. He’s an intellectual impressionist but as an artist his remit I think is far wider.

10.22.53

I/V Timothy Potts, Director Fitzwilliam Museum

He thought of himself as a modern artist, but he brought to it more than any other artist at that period a sense of history and the great weight of tradition.

10.23.05

Degas sketches

Images of women dominate Degas’ work - often he gives the impression that we are looking at them unawares.

10.23.21

Degas wax model of dancer

This pre-occupation with the female form also found expression in his sculptures such as this wax model of a dancer.

10.23.21

I/V Julia Poole, Keeper Applied Arts

If you’ve ever been a dancer which I was and you look at these figures you can see how intensely realistic they are. The way that Degas has absolutely caught a particular moment in a movement as the person here is standing on one leg, she’s doing an arabesque which is quite difficult to hold the position you can see the intense concentration on her face, the angle of the leg and the way the knees are done. Everything is so extraordinarily life like.

10.23.49

Degas wax model of dancer

It is this sense of vigorous realism that characterizes all of Degas’ work. Yet he was deliberate artist whose fresh and immediate style belies the careful preparation and many changes that went into his work.

10.24.05

I/V Timothy Potts, Director Fitzwilliam Museum

You don’t just see it full blown in its full glory; you see how he pushed the paint around, how he developed a figure. Its mostly black of course with some shades of gray, perhaps not in that sense his prettiest painting, but how powerfully does it convey a sad little corner of Parisian street life.

10.24.25

CU details of ‘At the Café’

10.24.41

Title: Treasures of the Fitzwilliam Museum

10.24.45

Portrait Viscount Fitzwilliam

When Lord Fitzwilliam left his bequest in 1816 his wish was that it should contribute – in his words - to the ‘increase of learning’. The creation of his museum has far surpassed that modest intention. The museum he founded is now one of the world’s greatest.

10.25.01

GVs Fitzwilliam Museum

Nearly 200 years later, hundreds of thousands of people come to visit it each year. They are still inspired and enthused by his collections and also by those that have been added since. Other museums may be bigger, but none can better the quality and diversity of art and culture offered here.

10.25.41

Credits