Fancy faience at the Young V&A
Ancient Egyptian artefacts from Eton’s Museum of Antiquities have gone on display at the Young V&A Museum in Bethnal Green for their Making Egypt exhibition. Fantastic creatures in faience, scarab beetles, Ibis-headed gods and offering bearers grace the exhibition, and will help to illustrate the enduring fascination with Ancient Egypt and its ongoing inspiration for contemporary culture.
School Dinners
Three items from the Museum of Eton Life and Archives were transported to the Food Museum in Suffolk for their School Dinners exhibition, which opens on Thursday 27 March. A leather beer jug, a wooden trencher, and an 18th century buttery book have been lent to the exhibition until early 2027.
Evie Hone stained glass goes to Ireland
In February, two stained glass panels by Irish painter and stained-glass artist Evie Hone (1894-1955) were borrowed by the National Gallery of Ireland for their new exhibition Mainie Jellett and Evie Hone: The Art of Friendship, which opens on Thursday 10 April. The panels are smaller studies for the windows that Hone went on to design for Eton College Chapel.
Facelifts for Eton portraits
An external specialist, along with the conservator, recently worked to revive and repair a selection of nine oil painting portraits from the Fine & Decorative Art collection. Bumps, cracks, holes and scratches were repaired, before the paintings were cleaned and varnished then mounted to conservation standards. The portraits are now bright, clean and damage-free thanks to this work.
Ukrainian soldiers visit the Museum of Antiquities
A group of Ukrainian soldiers enjoyed a visit to the Museum of Antiquities in February. They were taking part in Operation Interflex, a programme run by the MOD to provide essential mental health training and psychological support to those on Ukraine’s front lines. As part of their day off in Windsor and Eton, the group were shown some of the highlights in the museum.
Palaeography club
A new initiative was launched in January for Etonians. Supported by the College Library and Archives, the boy Keeper of Collections invited boys to dive into some of Eton’s most important documents and manuscripts to learn about different scripts. The palaeography club has explored—and attempted to decipher—writing from the medieval period to the 19th century.
Notes from the past
As part of a library cataloguing project, we’ve uncovered some fascinating music manuscripts. These include scores and letters from composers such as Victor Hely-Hutchinson, Henry G. Ley, C.H.H. Parry and Peter Warlock, many with ties to Eton College. Highlights also include vocal music, piano songs, sacred choral works and autograph letters by Warlock, Vaughan Williams and Debussy. Notably, some feature annotations and corrections in the composers’ own hands, such as Peter Warlock’s The Fox (pictured).
