Making a Case for Cases: The Furniture of Display

10-11 January 2020

The Bowes Museum, County Durham

This conference aims to explore the furniture used by collectors, museums and institutions for displaying artefacts. Spanning diverse functions and definitions, objects known as display cases, showcases, china cabinets, vitrines, specimen tables, or even trophy cabinets, are ubiquitous in the home and museum. However, there still remains a lack of scholarly engagement with cases in the disciplines of art or furniture history, museology, interior design, history of the sciences and anthropology, seen as utilitarian or secondary to the objects they contain. In short, the conference aims to shift the focus from the contained to the container.

This event is generously supported by the AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Partnership Consortium, The Bowes Museum, The Furniture History Society and the Centre for Nineteenth Century Studies, Durham University

A full programme will be released in due course

Provisional speaker list:

• Anaïs Alchus, Musée national Adrien Dubouché, Limoges, France

• Dr Pamela Bianchi, Université Paris 8

• Dr Nicole Cochrane, Independent Scholar

• Jessica Eddie, The Rosalinde & Arthur Gilbert Collection, The V&A

• May Geolot, Daniel Crouch Rare Books

• Ellinor Gray, Royal Collection Trust

• Suzanne Higgott, The Wallace Collection

• Dr Kate Hill, University of Lincoln

• Penelope Hines, National Trust

• Dr Mia Jackson, Waddesdon Manor/National Trust

• Charlotte Johnson, University of Birmingham & Kedleston Hall, National Trust

• Dr Lenia Kouneni, University of St Andrews

• Dr Caroline McCaffrey-Howarth, University of Leeds; V&A/RCA; University of Buckingham

• Ines Rüttinger, Museum für Gegenwartskunst Siegen, Germany

• Simon Spier, University of Leeds & The Bowes Museum

• Sonja Taylor, The Burrell Collection

• David Thickett, Historic England

• Lucy West, University of Leeds, The National Gallery & The Bowes Museum

• Dr Jane Wildgoose, Kings College London and Keeper, The Wildgoose Memorial Library

• Félix Zorzo, The Wallace Collection