Magpies, Squirrels and Thieves: How the Victorians Collected the World

by Jacqueline Yallop

During the Victorian age, British collectors were among the most active, passionate, and eccentric in the world. This book tells the stories of some of the 19th century's most intriguing collectors, following their perilous journeys across the globe in the hunt for rare and beautiful objects. From art connoisseur John Charles Robinson, to the aristocratic scholar Charlotte Schreiber, who ransacked Europe for treasure, and from London's fashionable Pre-Raphaelite circle, to pioneering Orientalists in Beijing, Jacqueline Yallop plunges us into the cut-throat world of the Victorian mania for collecting.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Victorian, Art, Biography

420 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 2011

Reviews

[K.J. Charles]

If you're interested in the way British nineteenth century intellectuals looted the world on a personal rather than national level. Nice section on women collectors and the way they created value for "domestic" objects like cards and china as against objets d'art, as chosen by men. Interesting on the founding of the South Ken museums also. But basically enraging as we watch Brits rip artefacts out of their historical and cultural contexts in order to bring them back to Britain and give them value on the basis of "because I, a white and probably male British person, say so."

[Marguerite Kaye · Rating 4 out of 5]

I knew the Victorians liked to collect things, but I hadn't really thought about why. Now I know.

This is an excellent book, a very readable history that uses the specific examples of five very different collectors to put the theory of collecting in its historical context, and to tackle the history of two associated disciplines, art history, and curatorship - by which I mean, the theory behind how collections are displayed.

Until the Museum Act, collecting and displaying your collection was the province of the rich. Though many private collections could be viewed, it was by appointment, and so pretty much excluded the poor and the illiterate. But as the industrial revolution progressed and working-class people got more leisure time and a bit more money to spend, the Victorian Establishment began to fret that without any more edcuational delights to distract them, the great unwashed would take to the pub. Thus, the Museum Act, which provided for taxes to build museums, but not to buy anything to go inside them. And so private collectors became public benefactors, and the great debate about what should be show, what constituted art, and how displays should be made, began.

I confess, it's not something I'd given much thought to until I read this book, but it's a subject matter that Yallop deals with lucidly and entertainingly. Should collections remain together under the benefactor's name, even if they are a mish mash of objects? Should chronology play a part? And what about context? Obvious questions to us, used as we are to sophisticated displays and a wealth of choice, but when museums were in their childhood, these things had still to be addressed.

Then there's the issue of what, exactly, is worthy of being displayed? The debate between intrinsic beauty and provinence is one that raged in the early days of the British Museum and what became the V&A. When the world began to open up to the Victorians, and artefacts from South America, China and Africa came on the market, curators didn't know how to classify them - were they art, or just interesting objects which demonstrated how 'inferior' were these primative civilisations.

Fascinating as these arguements are, it is the actual human examples which Yallop uses which bring this book to life, from the slightly manic Robinson of the V&A, to the celebrity-mad Mayer, whose collection included (apparently!) a pair of slippers worn by Queen Victoria on her wedding day, and the austere and knowledgable Charlotte Schreiber, one of the few women collectors taken seriously by the Victorian Establishment.

Murray Marks, friend of the Pre-Raphaelites and dealer to some of the wealthiest Americans, is the first of what we'd recognise as an art dealer. Towards the end of the century, as the display of 'art' in a new-made ancestral home by one of the new-made industrial elite sent the price of 'art' soaring, people like Marks made a fortune - and so did the fraudsters. The fact that some fakes had as much artistic merit as the originals brought the 'what is art' question to the fore once more. Fakes confused the Victorians, who liked order, black and white answers with no shades of grey. The idea that artistic merit, as opposed to provenance, could influence the value of something sent their logical heads spinning. Enter Oscar Wilde, and his 'art for art's sake' quote. And, sadly, the end of this book, which has left me very hungry to know more.

[Preludes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Also find their review at my blog 'Preludes'

So much of our lives are defined by the objects around us.

Like it or lump it, as a western society we are firmly snagged in a web of consumerism.Collecting, as a hobby, unflinchingly embraces this way of living in all it's good and bad elements. For every person pulled into a financial black hole under the weight of the ever-growing pile of objects, there is a person who scouts out a rare beauty that defines a time period or an emotion encapsulated in a treasure.
Now I love to sit down and faun at the objects that turn up on The Antiques Roadshow,Bargain Hunt and Flog it, and I may or may not even have a little mental wish list of historical objects I'd love to own in a mini museum should I ever win the lottery (First Edition signed copy of The Picture of Dorian Grey, I'm looking at you). It turns out that, in the Victorian period, more people than ever before took their new wealth and turned to collecting. Magpies, Squirrels and Thieves tells their story.

Yallop's writing is engaging and tells the history of several prominent Victorian collectors. Through her research and a creative flourish in her writing that steps us vibrantly into the past, she tells a story of these people's passions, adventure, ambitions, frustrations and fortune.

From the pompous career focused stubbornness of John Charles Robinson we learn about the developments of museums and the tension between the public and private spheres of collecting in Victorian society. Through the domestic adventure of Charlotte Schreiber and her husband we see a private adventure as they explored war-torn Europe on their quest for treasure, with Charlotte challenging the assumptions of her gender with her enthusiastic engagement and the knowledgeablity of her collecting. From the inspiring business sense of Murray Marks we learn the fashions of collecting and threats of forgeries. And through the story of the eager and modest curiosity of the doctor Stephen Wootton as he took up residence in peaking, China, we see how collecting could not only make the career of even an ordinary man, but also aid in the appreciation of a foreign culture beyond ethnic stereotypes and imperial ambition. Lovely.
With charming well-researched writing Yallop creates a wonderful history book that is both well-researched yet not intimidatingly academic. You’re sure to leave the book with a few more historical heros and heroines for your own collection.

On an interesting note, you can to this day still pick up Charlotte Schreiber's journals of her travels collecting ceramics.

[Liam Ostermann · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting but basically a slight book about very slight people - collectors of decorative arts and other bits and pieces, grimoires and sundry object d'art - we art not talking about Rothschilds, Frick or any of the other great collectors, there are no Hearst filling Xanadu's with the plunder of the nations - just a load of over privileged, modestly wealthy (in terms of the amount they would spend on an object - honestly we get pages on a bloody vase in a funny shape that was bought for a few quid and even when in was sold in the 1990s only fetched £15,000 - lovely to get but we've all seen bigger windfalls on the Antiques Roadshow) these are not people like Duveen who raised vast marble galleries to their glory. As for the snobbery of John Charles Robinson - its enough to make you scream - even more so when you read about the way he used his position at the V&A to pursue his own business as a dealer and the way he undermined Prince Albert's original intentions for the South Kensington museum.

If you want tales that seem to exist purely to say how wonderful the Victorians are and revel in the chintz and minutea of junk then you'll probably like this book. It does say some interesting things and cover a period of collecting and developing museums etc. but, to be honest, it isn't substantial enough to warrant the time it took to read.

[Kerry · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating how the Victorians' mania for collecting birthed modern art history studies. Gentlemen collectors gave way to serious scholars, and museums went from striving to educate the public how not to behave to preserving and presenting humankind's greatest artistic achievements. The Victorian era also marks the time when artwork, previously held typically in the hands of the aristocracy, became available to people not of noble birth, as long as they could pay for it. Well-researched and readable, full of colorful characters, and doesn't linger too long on any one person or subject matter.

[Jeremy · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fascinating account of several Victorian collectors, who have largely been forgotten today. I especially like how the author has situated their collecting within the context of their era. A brilliant piece of detective work and analysis

[Graculus · Rating 2 out of 5]

Subtitled 'How the Victorians Collected the World', this book seemed quite intriguing in its apparent premise, to look at the sudden explosion of collectormania that swept Victorian Britain.

Unfortunately, when I actually got into the book, that wasn't what it was about at all - rather than looking at ordinary folks and their collections, it focussed on the life and career of four individuals who made collecting their life and work.

While it's clear those individuals (3 men and a woman) handled antiquities that went on to be the backbone of a large number of current museum collections both in Britain and elsewhere, I found that much less interesting than it could have been. What I was looking for, which the book didn't give me, was the more mundane folks, the ones whose obsessions with collecting were more down-to-earth, rather than the folks who travelled the globe and made it their livelihood.

[Abby · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favourite places in London is John Soane's Collection, and I always wondered what prompted him to collect such an assortment of 'stuff'. Well this book gave me an amazing insight into collectors of his vintage, I was amazed by the cutthroat dealings and desire and knowledge about particular pieces. The 5 collectors outlined had such vastly different interests and ambitions but each was fascinating. I particularly liked reading about Bushell, who spent many years in Peking.

[Kate · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was pretty much six potted biographies, where I expected a microhistory of Victorian discourses of collection. The analysis doesn't really ever move beyond the vaguest of blurby broad-sweep, and my interest was consequently entirely dependent on how interesting I found the biographee of the chapter. Yallop writes breezily, and this is very readable; I would probably have been more generous if I had gone in expecting a very slight, 'beach' history kind of book.

[Marilyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved it. Because the author told the story of 5 different collectors; I think the book was very interesting. I learned so much about the times of women then and the history of museum collecting pursuits. She explained the journey and excitement that the collectors went on. the one to CHina was great and so was the story of two others. The title is not good; I can't remember anyone collecting a magpie or a squirrel.

[Jane Walker · Rating 4 out of 5]

Unexpectedly enjoyable. Yallop tells the story of Victorian collecting through the careers of five individuals, but in the course of their often over-lapping lives we see how museums developed, driven by the eclectic tastes of men and women who acquired "stuff" on a huge scale. Collectors became dealers and vice versa, and a vast trade developed, but it was very much of its time. This book captures the period very well.

[Lauren Albert · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting look at a handful of pioneering collectors. Yallop succeeds in drawing pictures of the whole era of collecting while focusing primarily on her main subjects. From forgeries to Chinoiserie, her collecters' lives touched on all the main issues of the day regarding collecting.

[Wendy Parkinson · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating history of five Victorian collectors - what they did and how they did it. I enjoy visiting museums and stately homes and this gave a good background into how the collections in these places came to be. Nicely written popular history.

[Neeuqdrazil · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was an interesting book, a very quick read, and covered an area of Victorian history that I didn't know much about.

[Cathy]

Interesting history of the growth of museums in the Victorian era and of the relationship between private collecting & museum collecting.