Personal Collecting

A perennial problem with material culture studies is the temptation to collect what you work on. This is all the worse with repair as broken things are generally quite cheap. My mother’s partner Patrick Jewell is a dealer, so I’ve always regularly checked charity shops and market stalls as a matter of routine. I have accumulated have a small collection of repaired ceramics, pictured below.

Japanese lotus bowl with kintsugi repair, seventeenth century, from the collection of Tomas Brown
Lotus bowl with kintsugi repair, seventeenth century.
French faience charger with rivet repairs, from the collection of Tomas Brown
French faiance charger with rivets.
Twentieth-century Persian dish, from the collection of Tomas Brown
Twentieth-century persian dish.
Cries of London plate with rivet repairs, 1920s, from the collection of Tomas Brown
Cries of London plate with rivets, 1920s.
Ceramic meat strainer with rivets utilising preexisting holes, from the collection of Tomas Brown
Meat strainer, rivets utilising preexisting holes.
Glasgow soup tureen with glued handle, from the collection of Tomas Brown
Glasgow soup tureen, glued handle.
Nineteenth-century Wedgwood tureen with webbed rivet repairs, from the collection of Tomas Brown
Nineteenth century Wedgwood tureen, webbed rivets.
Glasgow transferware tureen with glue consolidation, from the collection of Tomas Brown
Glasgow transferware tureen with glue consolidation.
Hard-paste porcelain cup, from the collection of Tomas Brown
Hard-paste cup.
Sugar taza from the Fitzwilliam Museum Feast and Fast exhibition, from the collection of Tomas Brown
Sugar taza from Feast and Fast, gifted by Ivan Day.
Sugar dish from the Fitzwilliam Museum Feast and Fast exhibition, from the collection of Tomas Brown
Sugar dish from Feast and Fast, gifted by Ivan Day.
Fourteenth-century greenware jug base, from the collection of Tomas Brown
Fourteenth century greenware jug base.
Pewter tankard, Trial Eights 1915 Pembroke College Cambridge, from the collection of Tomas Brown
Pewter tankard, Trial Eights 1915 Pembroke College.
Contemporary morris dancer's tankard, from the collection of Tomas Brown
Contemporary morris dancer's tankard.
Britannia metal jug with whipped handle, from the collection of Tomas Brown
Brittania metal jug with whipped handle.