Photographing Nattes
Stan A, a Year 13 volunteer with the Fine & Decorative Art collection at Eton, has photographed a volume in the Print Room by the watercolourist and topographical draughtsman John Claude Nattes (c.1765–1839).
Nattes was a founding member of the Society of Painters in Watercolours and exhibited at the Royal Academy from 1782 until 1814. He was commissioned to record the buildings of Lincolnshire by Sir Joseph Banks in 1789 and produced illustrations for John Stoddart’s Remarks on Local Scenery and Manners in Scotland (1801). Remarkably, he was expelled from Society of Painters in Watercolours in 1806, accused of exhibiting other artists’ work as his own. Stan completed the project by processing the images and adding references numbers, to enable them to appear in the order of the volume on the Collections online catalogue.
Friends of the Collections
Last month, 43 Friends of the Collections gathered for our first in-person event in 18 months. It was a great pleasure to be together again in Election Hall to hear curators introduce not one but three current exhibitions: Six Centuries of Food and Dining at Eton College, Eton’s Bard: Thomas Gray and A Victorian Legacy: Anne Thackeray Ritchie’s Life and Writings. The last was offered to us as a sneak preview before its official opening. The exhibitions were full of interest and inspiration, and it was a joy to see physical artefacts from across the Collections up close once again.
From silver to social history, poetry to prose, there was something for everyone.
You can find out more about the Friends of the Collections here
Ian Fleming Exhibition
A new, temporary display in the museum’s Old Etonian section looks at Ian Fleming. It draws on College Library’s modern collection. Another display, in the window of the Eton Information Centre on the High Street, introduces the Museum of Eton Life through a series of reproduced images and items from the museum’s handling collection on the theme of the Wall Game.
A reminder of the opening times of our museums and galleries for November is below – come and see us!
