A Consultant on the Team

Post by: Mary Case, Inventory Consultant

              Organizational Coach, Qm2:  Quality Management to a

              Higher Power

     

Joining the WCMFA Collections Inventory Project, afforded me the privileged opportunity that a skilled outsider always receives when offered a temporary spot on a functioning team.  This team -- Jennifer Chapman Smith, Lauren Ippolito, and Linda Dodson -- and joined later by Kay Palmateer  -- managed to uncover and address with energy and curiosity every challenge of a museum collections inventory. 

First, the collections areas needed to be outfitted for the work.  Out with the old boxes, periodicals, unusable castoffs, and accumulations that occur in shared workspaces over decades. Yes, they did unearth a desiccated snake way back in the corner.  Yikes!

 

Careful with the measurements and allocations of potential spaces for specific work and specific collections to be moved into freshly organized spaces.   More care lavished on cleaning floors, walls, crevices, pipes. Every space, cabinet, and shelf were freshly numbered and labeled. Hygrothermographs ready.

Museum collections have two parts:  the object and the information about it.  So, from the start, the team thought deeply about how to migrate information from an inadequate legacy computer program and how to integrate the standing files.  A skilled volunteer – Judy Wheeler  -- scrubbed the data and we were launched into the world of PastPerfect.

What is the role of a consultant in this sort of exercise?  Listening carefully and asking questions.  Sometimes more than once.  Connecting staff and volunteers with resources.  Present different ways of thinking about things, from the sidelines.  Watching as the work proceeded, in spite of all the normal and unusual distractions of life and the nonprofit workplace. Coaching.

 

When asked what they felt what my role in the inventory process is and how I have assisted in the process, Jennifer and Lauren responded:

Mary Case brings a deep understanding of museum practices and procedures as well as a perceptive insight into people and teams. All of this knowledge combined has made Mary an invaluable resource for the WCMFA’s collection inventory project. As a consultant she brings with her a fresh perspective and new ideas. She is especially good at facilitating discussions and asking the questions that create deeper thinking about the WCMFA’s collection and how we use it to enrich our visitors’ experience.

 

Portrait of Rosina Hager Heister by Joseph Wright

Post by: Jennifer Chapman Smith

              Collections and Exhibitions Manager

The WCMFA is situated in the beautiful City Park in Hagerstown, Maryland. Also in City Park is the Jonathan Hager house, the home of the founder of the town. Jonathan Hager (1714 – 1775), emigrated from Germany in 1736 and inspired by Charles Calvert’s offer of cheap land to those willing to settle the western frontier moved to Western Maryland in 1739. He purchased 200 acres of land, naming it “Hager’s Fancy”, and began constructing the home styled in the German tradition. In 1762 Hager officially founded the town he called Elizabethtown, in honor of his wife. The City Council changed the name to Hagerstown in 1813 because the name had gained popular usage. The name change was officially endorsed by the Maryland State Legislature in 1814. Hager was also instrumental in helping Hagerstown become the county seat of the newly created Washington County, Maryland.

Jonathan Hager House

 

In 1740, Hager married Elizabeth Kershner (d.1765), also a German emigrant, and the couple had two children, Rosina (1752 – 1810) and Jonathan Jr. (b.1755). The WCMFA is fortunate to have the portrait of Rosina Hager in the collection. It was given to the museum by Mr. Lewis E. Wingert, a Hager descendent, in 1991. The portrait is currently on view in a special focus exhibition in honor of Hagerstown’s 250^th Anniversary.

 

Joseph Wright, “Portrait of Rosina Hager Heister,” circa 1790, oil on canvas

 

Prior to being hung in the focus exhibition the portrait was inventoried by the inventory team. Part of the inventory process is performing a condition report on each object. The report provides us with a good understanding of the condition of all objects in our collection. The structural integrity of the painting was checked as well as the integrity of the frame. The report allows us to determine if the object is being stored appropriately and if it is able to be put on view. The inventory team found that the portrait of Rosina Hager has areas of retouched paint from a previous conservation that are lighter than the original paint but the structure of the painting and frame are secure and do not prevent the painting from being safely displayed. With such a significant anniversary for the city the WCMFA felt it important to have the portrait in the exhibition and with the condition report from the inventory complete we felt comfortable including it.

 

The portrait was painted around 1790 by Joseph Wright (American, 1756-1793) when Rosina Hager was living in the Philadelphia area with her husband Daniel Heister (1741-1804). It is believed that a portrait of Daniel Heister was completed at this time as a companion to Rosina’s portrait but the location of this painting is not known.

 

The artist, Joseph Wright, was the son of wax artist, Patience Lovell Wright, and probably received his first training from her. Wright moved with his mother to London and Paris, where he studied art. He met Benjamin Franklin in Paris and completed several portraits of the prominent American. After returning to America in 1783, Wright became a well known portrait artist in Philadelphia and completed his most prominent work, the portraits of George and Martha Washington.       

 

The special Hagerstown 250^th Focus Exhibition is on view in the WCMFA’s lobby now through October 28, 2012. Other objects on view are Jonathan Hager’s waistcoat, the Hager Family Bible and Sermon Book, and Jonathan Hager’s pocket watch and shoe buckles.

 

WCMFA Painting on View at Philadelphia Museum of Art

 

In late 2010, the museum was contacted by the Philadelphia Museum of Art requesting the loan of the museum’s Thomas Birch (American, 1779 – 1851) oil painting The Shipwreck, 1837, for the exhibition Shipwreck! Winslow Homer and “The Life Line”. The exhibition focuses on Philadelphia’s magnificent Winslow Homer painting, The Life Line, to explore the making and meaning of images of rescue. The Washington County Museum of Fine Art’s shipwreck painting was a perfect fit, since Birch’s work would have been known to Homer and the painting so effectively communicates the power and terror of the sea. The loan request was approved and the painting is currently on view in the exhibition at the in the Philadelphia Museum of Art; which is on view September 22, 2012 through December 16, 2012.

 

Thomas Birch's "The Shipwreck" on view at the Philadelphia Museum of Art

 

Before the painting was packed for transport to Philadelphia the objects team inventoried the painting and created condition reports that traveled with the painting. Doing condition reports, including detailed photographs, prior to the painting being transported is important in ensuring that any changes that may occur during transport or while the work is on exhibition are noticed quickly. Inventorying the work prior to its departure and making sure the Past Perfect database is updated with its location as “On Loan” is important to maintain intellectual control of the painting even when it is away from the museum.



 

 

Back of Thomas Birch's "The Shipwreck" prior to being packed.

 

The WCMFA is excited when we receive loan requests for works of art from the collection, especially for such significant exhibitions as this. It allows more people to see works of art from our collection and introduces people to the WCMFA that may not know about us. The inventory assists with loan requests, in providing us with great images and updated information to share with other museums and institutions that are interested in borrowing works of art from the collection.     

 

*For more information on the exhibition Shipwreck! Winslow Homer and “The Life Line” at the Philadelphia Museum of Art visit http://www.philamuseum.org/exhibitions/749.html