The Nine-Ton Cat and giveaway winner

Thanks to everyone who participated in last month's giveaway for How the Sphinx Got to the Museum by Jessie Hartland (Blue Apple Books, 2010).  In that post, I asked commenters for their best behind-the-scenes-at-the-museum questions (such as this one from Janelle's daughter, who asks, "Why can't I touch that?").

Some of those questions--about curatorial work, exhibition design, conservation and more--are answered in The Nine Ton Cat:  Behind the Scenes at an Art Museum by Peggy Thomson with Barbara Moore; edited by Carol Leon (Houghton Mifflin, in association with the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, 1997).  Now out-of-print (and maybe slightly out-of-date as well), The Nine-Ton Cat is a book for older readers (9-12 and up), who might be inspired to consider a museum-related career.  It's loosely organized around a day at the National Gallery, beginning at 6am with a guard patrolling the halls and ending at 6m with a planning meeting for this very book.

In between, The Nine-Ton Cat takes you into the "private spaces" of the museum:  the design studio, conservation lab, library, and greenhouse (yes, the National Gallery has its own greenhouses on site) for a close look at the work that goes on there.  Detailed text, with lots of quotes from unnamed Gallery staff, and photographs contribute to the behind-the scenes appeal.

I would love to see an updated edition of The Nine-Ton Cat, perhaps in a larger, more clearly organized format (it's easy to lose your place, in much the same way that it's easy to get lost at the Gallery).  In the meantime, congratulations to Christine Mingus, winner of How the Sphinx Got to the Museum!  I think her elementary school students will love it.

[One of my favorite anecdotes from The Nine-Ton Cat:  The head of the horticultural staff wishes that Rubens Peale (in a portrait painted by his brother Rembrandt, 1801) would water his geranium! It does look a little wilted, doesn't it?]

Arcimboldo and The Tale of Despereaux

I skipped lunch the other day to watch the exhibition film for Arcimboldo, 1526-1593: Nature and Fantasy, currently on view at the National Gallery, which references the character of Boldo in the animated feature The Tale of Despereaux.  That's Boldo in the image above, a character composed entirely of fruits and vegetables, pots and pans--distinctly resembling the composite heads painted by his namesake, the Renaissance artist Arcimboldo.

Unfortunately, I couldn't remember a character named Boldo in Kate DiCamillo's Newbery Award-winning novel The Tale of Despereaux: Being the Story of a Mouse, a Princess, Some Soup, and a Spool of Thread (illustrated by Timothy Basil Ering with no apparent debt to Arcimboldo; Scholastic, 2003) and was forced to reread it.  In vain, as it turns out: Boldo (a sort of soup genie) was created for the movie version of the book (which I also watched this weekend). The animation, by London-based Framestore, employs a palette and lighting drawn from the Dutch Masters; and the movie also spotlights two portraits, one of the deceased Queen and another of Princess Pea.  Altogether I prefer the movie.  You can watch a video podcast (of the exhibition film, that is! It's narrated by Isabella Rossellini) here, or better yet, at the National Gallery til January 9, 2011.

[Here's Arcimboldo's Vertumnus (c. 1591, on loan from Skokloster Castle in Sweden) for comparison to Boldo.  Note especially the apple cheeks!]

Middle Grade Gallery 8

This week in the Middle Grade Gallery, a painting that functions as a birth token, a small object kept as an identifying record of an abandoned or orphaned infant.  During the evacuation of children from Edinbugh in the early days of WWII, shy, wealthy Marjorie, on her way to relatives in Canada, trades places with the orphaned Shona and is evacuated to the Scottish countryside (from the LoC summary).  Marjorie discovers the painting in Shona's suitcase:

Taking up the whole bottom of the case was a painting in a wooden frame.  Marjorie was puzzled that Shona, who had so few possessions, would bring a painting along with her.  She lifted it out of the suitcase and carried it over directly under the light so she could see it better.  It showed a Victorian house, rather ornate and turreted, standing in the middle of an overgrown garden.  The windows were blank and empty and, in the forground, iron gates hung open, bent and rusted.  The big stone gateposts leaned at drunken angles and a decorative stone ball had fallen from the top of one.  It lay among the weeds, chipped and shadowed so that it looked like a skull.

[Me again.]  The description is from a childhood favorite (note the British orphans, practically a prerequisite).  After years of searching, I recently located a secondhand copy and upon rereading, was as surprised by the painting as Marjorie was; I had forgotten all about it until she opened the suitcase.  The image accompanying this post, a painting of a ruined Victorian house, Lansdown, Bath 1942, is by British war artist John Piper, who had been commissioned to record bomb damage in and around London at that time.

Does any of this sound familiar--plot, painting, Piper?  Even if you don't recognize this middle grade novel, please leave a comment if you can recommend any others having to do with the evacuation.  I'll reveal, review, and round up the recommendations next week.  Thanks!

[Revealed here.]

Middle Grade Gallery 7

This week in the Middle Grade Gallery, a portrait of a queen from a fairly recent fantasy novel (the third in a series of five, so far) that borrows from our familiarity with another, English queen: 

It is a skillful painting of a Castle Queen, from times long past.  He can tell that it is old because she is wearing the true crown, the one that was lost many centuries ago.  The queen has a sharp pointy nose and wears her hair coiled around her ears like a pair of earmuffs.  Clinging to her skirts is an Aie-Aie--a horrible little creature with a ratty face, sharp claws and a long snake's tail.  Its round, red eyes stare out at Silas as though it would like to bite him with its one long, needle-sharp tooth.  The Queen too looks out from the painting, but she wears a lofty, disapproving expression.  Her head is held high, supported by a starched ruff under her chin and her piercing eyes are reflected in the light of Silas's candle and seem to follow them everywhere.

[Me again.]  Does this passage remind you of Elizabeth I, too?  I looked at a lot of portraits of Elizabeth before settling on one to illustrate this post:  the Ermine Portrait, attributed to William Segar (formerly, to Nicholas Hilliard), 1585; and on display at Hatfield House, one of Elizabeth's childhood residences.  The "lofty, disapproving expression," along with other details of the queen's appearance described in the passage, is common to most of Elizabeth's portraits, but the Ermine is as close as they come to an Aie-Aie.

[Hint:  The Queen in the novel is named Etheldredda.  Please leave a comment if you recognized her, too.]