Marianne Brocklehurst and the West Park Museum, Macclesfield. Part 2
In part 1 I looked at how Marianne Brocklehurst acquired a collection of some 500 Ancient Egyptian objects during the three trips to Egypt that she records in her diary, cartoons, sketches and watercolours. In this section I look at the museum and the collection that Marianne and her brother Francis built for the benefit of the residents of Macclesfield in northwest England. [more…]
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Marianne Brocklehurst and the West Park Museum, Macclesfield – Part 1
Marianne Brocklehurst was the daughter of a wealthy Victorian silk manufacturer (figure 1). On the one hand she was, by all accounts, charming, bright, and full of curiosity, with a love of travel and history. She was articulate, an engaging writer and a talented painter and cartoonist. But although her portraits show a beautiful face, Marianne had side to her that was far from angelic side to her. Travelling to Egypt in the early 1870s she became a self-confessed amateur smuggler, enthusiastically joining in with the popular pastime of purchasing black-market objects to take home. [more…]