25 July 2014

New Pitt Rivers Museum Cook voyage collections website now live

1886.1.1332 Sisi Fale

A new website Cook Voyage Collections at the Pitt Rivers Museum designed to provide researchers and the general public with access to all the information that the Pitt Rivers Museum holds about the objects in its care that were collected on the famous Pacific voyages of Captain James Cook (1728–1779) was launched in June. At its heart is a searchable catalogue that links to the relevant records in the Museum's regularly updated online database. The website is one of the outcomes of a two-year project to conserve and investigate the Cook-Voyage collections at the Pitt Rivers, funded by the Clothworkers' Foundation and led by Deputy Head of Conservation Jeremy Uden. 


In February 2014, the Pitt Rivers was pleased to announce that it had been awarded £64,845 from the DCMS/Wolfson Foundation's Museums and Galleries Improvement Fund.  The award will allow the museum to purchase a new display case for the Cook-voyage collections, and the case will be big enough to enable objects like the fau (Tahitian Priest's helmet) and the Tahitian Mourner's costume to be displayed to their full effect for the first time.  A generous donation from the Friends of the Pitt Rivers Museum will help with installation costs. The new case will give the Museum the opportunity to reinterpret the Cook voyage collection in light of new information and research findings discovered during the Conserving Curiosities project. Below are images of some of the objects that will be included in the new display.

1886.1.1340 Headdress

1886.1.1685 Headdress

1886.21.19 cloak

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