Derby Museum and Art Gallery

Derby Museum and Art Gallery is a museum and art gallery in Derby, England. It was established in 1879, along with Derby Central Library, in a new building designed by Richard Knill Freeman and given to Derby by Michael Thomas Bass. The collection includes a gallery displaying many paintings by Joseph Wright of Derby; there is also a large display of Royal Crown Derby and other porcelain from Derby and the surrounding area. Further displays include archaeology, natural history, geology, military collections and world cultures. The Art Gallery was opened in 1882.

History

upright|thumb|The 1876 building mostly housed [[Derby Central Library but the dividing line with the newer building varied]]

The museum can trace its start to the formation of the Derby Town and County Museum and Natural History Society on 10 February 1836. In 1839 a major exhibition was held at the Mechanics' Institute which contained many items including those from Joseph Strutt's collection. Many of these made their way into Derby Museum's collection. In 1863 the botanist Alexander Croall was appointed the first Librarian and Curator and the following year the museum and library were joined together. Croall left in 1875

The Derby Town and County Museum was transferred into the ownership of Derby Corporation in 1870, but there were difficulties in finding space to display the collections. After placing all the artefacts into storage for three years, the museum was finally opened to the public on 28 June 1879.

In 1936 the museum was given a substantial collection of paintings by Alfred E. Goodey who had been collecting art for 50 years. At his death in 1945 he left £13,000 to build an extension to the museum. The extension, which now houses the museum, was completed in 1964.

In 2012, over 1,000 items were stolen from the museum's storage facility between 2 May and 19 June. The museum did not know about the theft until they accessed the facility to remove an item from storage. Stolen items included coins, medals, and watches. A man was charged with receiving stolen goods in connection with the theft in January 2013. Some of the items stolen were recovered.

Derby and the Enlightenment connection

left|thumb|450px|[[A Philosopher Lecturing on the Orrery, by Joseph Wright of Derby, 1766]]

Derby was significant in the eighteenth century for its role in the Enlightenment, a period in which science and philosophy challenged the divine right of kings to rule. The enlightenment has many strands, including the largely philosophical Scottish Enlightenment centred around the philosopher David Hume, and political changes that culminated in the French Revolution, but the English Midlands was an area where many key figures of industry and science came together. The Lunar Society included Erasmus Darwin, Matthew Boulton, Joseph Priestley and Josiah Wedgwood with Benjamin Franklin corresponding from America. Erasmus Darwin, grandfather of Charles Darwin, started the Derby Philosophical Society when he moved to Derby in 1783.

Some of the paintings by Joseph Wright of Derby, which are renowned for their use of light and shade, are of Lunar Society members. The Derby Gallery possesses over 300 sketches and 34 oil paintings by Wright, and also holds a document collection. One of the paintings is entitled The Alchymist in Search of the Philosopher's Stone (1771) and it depicts the discovery of the element phosphorus by German alchemist Hennig Brand in 1669. A flask into which a large quantity of urine has been boiled down is seen bursting into light as the phosphorus, which is abundant in urine, ignites spontaneously in air.

thumb|Modern working grand orrery in the museum's Joseph Wright gallery

A Philosopher Lecturing on the Orrery shows an early mechanism for demonstrating the movement of the planets around the Sun. The Scottish scientist, astronomer and lecturer James Ferguson undertook a series of lectures in Derby in July 1762. They were based on his book Lectures on Select Subjects in Mechanics, Hydrostatics, Pneumatics, Optics &c., published in 1760. In order to illustrate his lectures he used various machines, models and instruments. Wright possibly attended Ferguson's lecture, especially as tickets for the event were available from John Whitehurst, his close neighbour, the clockmaker and scientist. The artist could also have drawn on Whitehurst's practical knowledge to find out more about the orrery and its operation.

Significance of Joseph Wright's paintings

thumb|upright=1.3|left|[[The Alchemist Discovering Phosphorus|The Alchemist in Search of the Philosopher's Stone, by Joseph Wright, 1771]]

These factual paintings are considered to have metaphorical meaning too, the bursting into light of the phosphorus in front of a praying figure signifying the problematic transition from faith to scientific understanding and enlightenment, and the various expressions on the figures around the bird in the airpump indicating concern over the possible inhumanity of the coming age of science. and his colleague Lavoisier in France was executed at the guillotine. The politician and philosopher Edmund Burke, in his famous Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790), tied natural philosophers, and specifically Priestley, to the French Revolution, writing that radicals who supported science in Britain "considered man in their experiments no more than they do mice in an air pump". In the light of this comment, Wright's painting of the bird in the air pump, completed over twenty years earlier, seems particularly prescient.

Wright of Derby

In 2011, Derby City Council announced that it was to use Joseph Wright of Derby to brand the city of Derby. At the same time, the Museum announced that it was "joining forces" with Wikipedia to improve the quality of its information. In February 2011 the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA) announced that it had awarded Designated status to Derby Museum and Art Gallery for its nationally significant holdings of paintings and drawings by Joseph Wright.

Bonnie Prince Charlie room

thumb|right|[[Charles Edward Stuart|Bonnie Prince Charlie room today]]

The museum houses a replica of the room in Derby where Charles Edward Stuart held his council of war in 1745, while on his way south to seize the British crown. The panelling is from the original Exeter House, which was demolished in 1854. The panels were brought to the museum, which then received related objects as donations. Queen Victoria provided an original letter of Bonnie Prince Charlie from her own collection.

Other artists

Besides the Wright collection there are also works by Benjamin West, E. E. Clark, Robert Priseman, Harold Gresley, Alfred John Keene, Georg Holtzendorff, David Payne, George and William Lakin Turner, Ernest Townsend, Samuel and Louise Rayner.

Soldier's Story gallery

The Soldier's Story gallery is dedicated to the history of the 9th/12th Royal Lancers, the Sherwood Foresters and the Derbyshire Yeomanry.

Wider collection

thumb|upright|The mounted figure on the Repton Stone in the museum has been identified as King [[Æthelbald of Mercia]]

A fragment of a cross shaft from Repton includes on one face a carved image of a mounted man which, it has been suggested, may be a memorial to Æthelbald of Mercia. The figure is of a man wearing mail armour and brandishing a sword and shield, with a diadem around his head. In 757, Æthelbald was killed at Seckington, Warwickshire, near the royal seat of Tamworth and buried at Repton, Derbyshire. If this is Æthelbald, it would make it the earliest large-scale pictorial representation of an English monarch.

The museum has a large collection of items from the Bretby Art Pottery.

The museum is home to the mummified remains of two ancient Egyptians named Pypyu and Pa-sheri. In 2025 Pa-Sheri was temporally transferred to the University of Lincoln for conservation.