What's behind door number 2?

On May 8, we took turns going in groups into the storage facility at the Walters' main location.  Photos are not permitted.  We learned that the Walters has 5,000 objects on view and 30,000 in storage, about 20,000 of them at this location.  We got just an inkling of how hard it must be to maintain a collection like this.  For example, what about the things that people give you that you don't want to display, ever, but must pay to store in climate-controlled, secure storage?  I suppose the museum could say no thank you, but if there are things in a collection we do want, and a whole bunch of things we don't, that's a hard call.  And what about things we do want to display but just don't have room for?  And then there's just the day to day management - objects moved for cleaning, for research, for relocation, all must be kept track of.

The City of Baltimore owns the Walters collection and periodically audits to make sure that all the objects are where they are supposed to be.  Lots of museums are owned by the cities they inhabit, but just think about the political problems that could raise.  And then of course there are the objects on long-term loan, and the trades to be negotiated with other museums - what a complicated bunch of problems.  Everyone must need lawyers.

In the afternoon, we finished up with the compare and contrast exercises.

Theresa compared a Roman sarcophagus to a funerary urn, focusing on form and function.  She had a great transition from the sarcophagus to the urn, asking us to turn the corner and look at another object with the same function, but a very different form.

Bonnie compared another sarcophagus with a funerary vase that would have been used to decorate or mark a grave.  She focused on what the objects would tell us about how someone lived.

And Mary Beth compared a vessel used to serve wine at a party, decorated with Dionysus, to a sarcophagus decorated to represent the triumph of Dionysus.  She focused on how we as a community agree on the uses of certain forms and the meanings of certain symbols.

Next week, we start to meet with the curators and begin the Art History portion of our training.