Small Blessings on display

Over the last few weeks the team has been busy preparing 23 of the ‘Small Blessings’ amulets for display in the Museum. After selecting a handful of amulets from the thousands in the collection, I set about the task of writing display labels for them. The labels tell visitors a little bit about where each amulet is from and what it was used for – a first glimpse of the stories that will be available on the final project website, which we will be launching this summer.

Each of the objects was catalogued by Alice and Rosanna, photographed by Malcolm, and checked for display by Jenny. Alice and Rosanna ensured that each object had been numbered and that its location had been updated on the database, and Jenny whisked one of the snails away to the freezer as it was showing signs of pest damage that might have endangered the other objects.

Ady, one of the Museum technicians, made a mock-up of the display so that we could decide where to place all of the objects and labels and see how the case would look. All this advanced planning meant that when everything was finally ready we could install the display with minimal disruption to the Museum.

Although the ‘Small Blessings’ display is only a small, temporary installation, preparing it involved a whole team of people. We hope you will be able to come to the Museum and take a look at these intriguing objects – you can find them in the Upper Gallery.

On display are: a policeman’s amulet, an ex-voto, a wolf’s tooth, a faith, hope and charity charm, two reliquaries, two Loreto bells, three horned hands, three Eiffel Tower mascots, four snails in linen bags, and five death’s head amulets.

Charlotte