DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.21832#0033
Plaster Casts of theWorks of Art
Between 1913 and 2010 only 200 casts were acquired and they were mostly statuettes
or heads, often obtained through gifts or exchanges. The outbreak of World War I
curtailed large scale acquisitions of casts, and during World War 11 some casts were
destroyed to make space for an air-raid shelter in the basement of the museum.
In the 1960s the casts were moved to make space for the University collection
of Eastern Arts. They were placed in a new building, built at the back of Cockerell's
building and accessible through a separate entrance (fig. 13). For the first time casts
from the antique had their own premises, were completely separated from original
sculptures, but they were not anymore in the centre of the museum, where they
held pride of place for more than a century. The cast collection was clearly labelled
as a teaching collection and placed under the sole jurisdiction of the professor
of Classical Archaeology. When in 1961 the Ashmolean Museum was re-organized
in five departments—Antiquities, Western Arts, Eastern Arts, Heberden Coin
Room, and Cast Gallery — the Cast Gallery was the only one that had no original
objects, no archives, no tradition of an independent existence, virtually no budget
for maintenance or acquisitions. Kept at a physical distance from the other depart-
ments it remained an underdeveloped resource, mostly used for teaching, drawing
classes and temporary exhibitions.
The new display of casts was laid out over the two floors, in a traditional chronological
order: archaic and early classical on the ground floor, Hellenistic and Roman on the
lower ground floor. A separate section was dedicated to Greek and Roman portraits,
tracing the evolution and range of ancient public self-representation, and to sculptural
material from the excavations at Aphrodisias, reflecting the current curator's interests.
32.
Between 1913 and 2010 only 200 casts were acquired and they were mostly statuettes
or heads, often obtained through gifts or exchanges. The outbreak of World War I
curtailed large scale acquisitions of casts, and during World War 11 some casts were
destroyed to make space for an air-raid shelter in the basement of the museum.
In the 1960s the casts were moved to make space for the University collection
of Eastern Arts. They were placed in a new building, built at the back of Cockerell's
building and accessible through a separate entrance (fig. 13). For the first time casts
from the antique had their own premises, were completely separated from original
sculptures, but they were not anymore in the centre of the museum, where they
held pride of place for more than a century. The cast collection was clearly labelled
as a teaching collection and placed under the sole jurisdiction of the professor
of Classical Archaeology. When in 1961 the Ashmolean Museum was re-organized
in five departments—Antiquities, Western Arts, Eastern Arts, Heberden Coin
Room, and Cast Gallery — the Cast Gallery was the only one that had no original
objects, no archives, no tradition of an independent existence, virtually no budget
for maintenance or acquisitions. Kept at a physical distance from the other depart-
ments it remained an underdeveloped resource, mostly used for teaching, drawing
classes and temporary exhibitions.
The new display of casts was laid out over the two floors, in a traditional chronological
order: archaic and early classical on the ground floor, Hellenistic and Roman on the
lower ground floor. A separate section was dedicated to Greek and Roman portraits,
tracing the evolution and range of ancient public self-representation, and to sculptural
material from the excavations at Aphrodisias, reflecting the current curator's interests.
32.