Romantic Circles

Significance

The Ashmolean Museum was open to the community at large, though entrance was not free. In this regard it more closely resembled the private curiosity collections that preceded it, such as Tradescant’s Ark, rather than the British Museum, which as a public institution has never charged for admission. Because access—whether by invitation, admission by fee, or free and pubic admission—was such a central issue to the evolving role of the museum in society during the Romantic era, it is significant that this engraving depicts not only the imposing new building raised to house the Tresdescants' collections donated by Elias Ashmole, but also a moment of access. However, the dominance of the museum itself cannot be overlooked, primarily because its creator, the draughtsman Frederick Mackenzie, was known for his finely detailed architectural drawings. More significant is the fact that, though serving as a frontispiece to A Catalogue of the Ashmolean Museum (1836), this elegant engraving yet presents an image of museum-going in which the building matters just as much—if not more—than what it contains. This emphasis reflects Ashmole’s own insistence on having a newly built, specially designed building in place to house the collections before giving them to the University. While the prestige lent by the Tradescants’ famous collection would have drawn public interest, the University of Oxford was probably just as eager to display the building itself: "When it was finally completed in 1683, Oxford had spent more than £4,500 to erect the building, a sum of money 'which so exhausted the university finances that for some years afterwards the Bodelian Library was unable to buy books' "(Swann 50). In keeping with its centrality to the image, the scale of the building renders the tiny figures who are about to enter into it almost insignificant: the scholar in academic garb appears to be welcoming the more fashionably dressed man and woman, who have come, presumably, to pay the entrance fee and view the contents of the museum, as well as to admire the latter's grand façade (for free). While the Ashmolean may have been open to “anyone, regardless of rank or gender, who could afford the entrance fee,” the man and woman in this image bear the trappings of the upper-class in their well-composed posture and dress (Swann 51). The lady’s arms are folded demurely in a muff; she wears a long, ornamented gown and bonnet. The gentleman—dressed in stockings, a waistcoat, and a top hat—is caught in rapt attention, following the scholar’s gestures towards the columns that surround the entrance to the Museum. Swann argues that the public practice of exhibition at the Ashmolean “subverted elite constructions of the collection as a marker of social distinction,” but there is nothing subversive about this visiting couple (Swann 51). Swann cites the 1710 observations of a German traveler named Zacharias Conrad von Uffenbach, who found the Museum plagued with unruly crowds:

When he first tried to enter the Ashmolean on a market day, it was so full of ‘country folk’ that von Uffenbach decided to postpone his visit; when he finally did view the collection, he was scandalized that "the people impetuously handle everything in the usual English fashion and . . . even the women are allowed up here for sixpence; they run here and there, grabbing at everything and taking no rebuff from the Sub-Custos." (Swann 51)

Rather than hoards of “country folk,” this image depicts three people who stand in stark contrast to Uffenbach’s opinion of “the usual English fashion.” They are every bit as grave and grand as the imposing façade that surrounds them, suggesting that the apparently egalitarian nature of this early public museum was still invested with—and potentially vexed by—a notion of propriety and rank.