John Doubleday (restorer)

Last updated

John Doubleday
John Doubleday with the Portland Vase.jpg
John Doubleday around 1845 with his restoration of the Portland Vase, and a watercolour of the shattered fragments
BornAbout 1798
New York, U.S.
Died(1856-01-25)25 January 1856
NationalityBritish
Occupation(s)Restorer, dealer
Years active1836–1856
Known forReconstructing the Portland Vase
Signature
Signature of John Doubleday (restorer).svg

John Doubleday (about 1798 [note 1] – 25 January 1856) was a British craftsperson, restorer, and dealer in antiquities who was employed by the British Museum for the last 20 years of his life. He undertook several duties for the museum, not least as a witness in criminal trials, but was primarily their specialist restorer, perhaps the first person to hold the position. He is best known for his 1845 restoration of the severely-damaged Roman Portland Vase, an accomplishment that places him at the forefront of his profession at the time.

Contents

While at the British Museum, Doubleday also dealt in copies of coins, medals, and ancient seals. His casts in coloured sulphur and in white metal of works in both national and private collections, allowed smaller collections to hold copies at a fraction of the price that the originals would command. Thousands of his copies entered the collections of institutions and individuals. Yet the accuracy he achieved led to confusion with the originals; after his death he was labelled a forger, but with the caveat that "[w]hether he did copies with the intention of deceiving collectors or not is open to doubt". [6]

Little is known about Doubleday's upbringing or personal life. Several sources describe him as an American, including the 1851 United Kingdom census, which records him as a New York-born British subject. An obituary noted that he worked at a printer's shop for more than 20 years during his youth, which gave him the experience of casting type that he would employ in his later career as a copyist. Doubleday's early life, family, and education are otherwise unknown. He died in 1856, leaving a wife and five daughters, all English; the eldest child was born around 1833.

At the British Museum

1836 lithograph of Doubleday, by Henry Corbould JohnDoubledayHC-NPG.jpg
1836 lithograph of Doubleday, by Henry Corbould

From 1836 to 1856 Doubleday worked in the Department of Antiquities at the British Museum. [7] He appears to have been employed as a freelancer who also occasionally acted as an agent in sales to the museum. [4] At times he presented the museum with items including coins, medals, and Egyptian objects. [8] Among other donations, his 1830 gift of 2,433 casts of medieval seals was the only significant donation recorded by the museum that year, [9] [10] he offered several coins and another 750 casts the following year, [11] and in 1836, he presented the museum with a Henry Corbould lithograph of himself. [8] A further presentation in 1837 was still considered, in 1996, to be one of the museum's most important collections of casts of seals. [12] He seems to have been the museum's primary, and perhaps its first, dedicated restorer; [13] [4] his death was described as leaving the post vacant. [14] At his death, it was noted that he was "chiefly employed in the reparation of innumerable works of art, which could not have been intrusted to more skilful or more patient hands", [2] and that he "was well known as one of the most valuable servants of that department". [1]

Portland Vase

The highlight of Doubleday's career came after 7 February 1845 when a young man, who later admitted having spent the prior week "indulging in intemperance", smashed the Portland Vase, an example of Roman cameo glass and among the most famous glass items in the world, [15] into hundreds of pieces. [16] After his selection for the restoration, Doubleday commissioned a watercolour painting of the fragments by Thomas H. Shepherd. [17] No account of his restoration survives, [18] but on 1 May he discussed it in front of the Society of Antiquaries of London, [19] [20] and by 10 September he had glued the vase whole again. [17] Only 37 small splinters, most from the interior or thickness of the vase, were left out; the cameo base disc, which was found to be a modern replacement, was set aside for separate display. [21] [22] A new base disc of plain glass, with a polished exterior and matte interior, was diamond-engraved "Broke Feby 7th 1845 Restored Sept 10th 1845 By John Doubleday". [17] The British Museum awarded Doubleday an additional £25 (equivalent to £2,700in 2019) for his work. [23]

At the time the restoration was termed "masterly" [24] and Doubleday was lauded by The Gentleman's Magazine for demonstrating "skilful ingenuity" and "cleverness ... sufficient to establish his immortality as the prince of restorers". [22] In 2006 William Andrew Oddy, a former keeper of conservation at the museum, noted that the achievement "must rank him in the forefront of the craftsmen-restorers of his time." [25] Doubleday's restoration would remain for more than 100 years until the adhesive grew increasingly discoloured. [26] [27] The vase was next restored by J. W. R. Axtell in 1948–1949, and then by Nigel Williams in 1988–1989. [26] [28] [note 2]

Other works

The shattered fragments of the Portland Vase, as painted in 1845 Thomas H. Shepherd - The Portland Vase fragments.jpg
The shattered fragments of the Portland Vase, as painted in 1845

Beyond his work on the Portland Vase, several other of Doubleday's responsibilities at the British Museum have been recorded. [4] In 1851 he successfully undid damaging restoration work by William Thomas Brande of the Royal Mint, who in using acid to clean bronze bowls from Nimrud had caused extreme oxidation. [32] Doubleday's method, described at the time only as "a very simple process and without employing acids", is unknown, but may have used warm water with soap. [33]

Doubleday was again called upon when, between 1850 and 1855, the museum received clay tablets from excavations in Babylonia and Assyria. [34] Some were poorly packaged and had developed crystalline deposits rendering the writing illegible. [34] Under the direction of Samuel Birch, then the keeper of the Department of Oriental Antiquities, Doubleday attempted to remove the deposits. [35] The results were described by E. A. Wallis Budge, former keeper of Egyptian and Assyrian antiquities at the museum, as "disastrous", [36] but by modern reasoning as "prescient", for though unsuccessful, the underlying methods were subsequently refined by others. [37] Doubleday first attempted to harden the tablets by firing them, but this resulted in the flaking of the surfaces, destroying the inscriptions. [38] His second attempt, submerging the tablets in solutions, also resulted in disintegration, at which point Birch suspended the efforts entirely. [39] Later attempts by other conservators in firing similar tablets were more successful; mainstream acceptance today is more tempered by concerns about reversibility than by concerns about efficacy. [40] Doubleday is regarded as the inventor of this method, and his failures may have been caused by raising or lowering the temperature too quickly. [41]

Doubleday twice served as a witness in criminal matters. [4] [42] In 1841 he testified about his analysis of a gold medal during a trial concerning its theft. [42] [43] Eight years later Doubleday again testified, in March and April 1849, in a matter concerning the theft of coins from the museum. [4] [44] Early in February, Timolean Vlasto, a fashionable twenty-four-year-old from Vienna whose late father, Count Vlasto, had been a diplomat, [45] [46] [47] had been introduced to Charles Newton (later Sir Charles) by a friend, who described Vlasto as a person interested in coins. [44] [46] [note 3] Vlasto was given unfettered access to the museum's collection. [44] [46] Suspicions were aroused on 24 March, and on Monday the 26th a label was found on the floor; the coin that it described was missing. [44] Upon inspection many more coins could not be found, but some were recovered when a search warrant for Vlasto's lodgings was obtained on Thursday. [44] [49] Doubleday was called to testify on Thursday or Friday; he stated that some of the coins exactly matched sulphur casts which he had made before the theft, and that the market value was between £3,000 and £4,000. [44] Vlasto, who was remanded without bail, claimed that the majority of the coins discovered were not the museum's. [44] [50] On 17 April Doubleday again testified, identifying two more coins as belonging to the museum. [47] [51] [52] In early May Vlasto pleaded guilty to the theft of 266 coins from the museum, valued at £500, and another 71, valued at £150, from the house of General Charles Richard Fox. [46] [53] Vlasto's lawyer termed him a monomaniac who was only interested in collecting, not selling. [46] The pleas met little sympathy. [54] Vlasto was sentenced by the Central Criminal Court to seven years transportation to Australia, [46] [55] [56] and in early 1851 was placed on board the Lady Kennaway for the journey. [57]

As a dealer

Apart from his work at the British Museum, Doubleday was a dealer and a copyist of coins, medals, and ancient seals. [2] He sold sulphur and white metal casts, the former coloured in different hues, at his establishment, [58] which, located near the British Museum, may have helped facilitate his employment there. [2] He also sold curiosities, [4] such as cabinets, snuff boxes, and lead seals purportedly made from materials taken from the charred ruins of the Palace of Westminster with the consent of the Commissioners of Woods and Forests, [59] [60] [61] [62] [63] and pieces of wood said to be from a tree planted by Shakespeare. [64] In 1835 Doubleday advertised for sale copies of 6000 Greek coins, 2050 bronze, 1000 silver, and 500 gold Roman coins, and 300 Roman medallions, [58] in addition to other antiquities and what Doubleday termed "the most extensive Collection of Casts in Sulphur of ancient seals ever formed". [65] By 1851 he had casts of more than 10,000 seals, [66] and at his death it was said that he "possessed the largest collection of casts of seals in England, probably in the world." [67] This comprehensiveness led to his contribution to the 1848 Monumenta Historica Britannica of a descriptive catalogue of Roman coins relating to Britain. [68] More unique pieces he sometimes exhibited, either himself or by loan to Sir Henry Ellis, to the Society of Antiquaries of London. [69] [70] [71] [72] [73] Doubleday's casts came from a range of places; [74] [75] [76] on good terms with a variety of institutions and collectors, he was permitted to take casts at will from the collections of the British Museum and the Bibliothèque nationale in Paris. [74] [77] [78]

Doubleday's casts were inexpensive, and sold widely. [58] [79] He was well known among collectors, [80] [81] [82] and also sold to lyceums; University College London filled out their collection with his casts, finding them cost-effective substitutes for study. [58] This same appearance of realism saw some of Doubleday's copies passed off as real. [83] [84] Doubleday was cast as a forger in Leonard Forrer's 1904 Biographical Dictionary of Medallists, though with the caveat that "[w]hether he did copies with the intention of deceiving collectors or not is open to doubt". [6] [note 4]

Personal life

Doubleday's headstone in Kensal Green Cemetery John Doubleday headstone.jpg
Doubleday's headstone in Kensal Green Cemetery

Little is known about Doubleday's personal life, [4] and nothing about his upbringing or education. [25] An 1859 edition of The English Cyclopædia described him as American, [86] [note 6] and the 1851 census as a New York-born "artist" who was nonetheless a British subject, married to one Elizabeth and father of five daughters, [4] all Londoners. [5] His eldest daughter, also an Elizabeth, was born around 1833, suggesting that Doubleday and his wife had married by then. [4]

Doubleday worked at a printer's shop in his youth for more than 20 years, according to his obituary in The Athenæum , giving him experience through making type in the casting of metal and other materials. [1] Subsequently, he began copying medals, ancient seals, and coins, [2] [4] occasionally devising new methods of doing so; [87] [66] he also prepared castings for the Royal Mint, and become a founding member of the Royal Numismatic Society. [4] [2] [88] By 1832 he was listed in directories under the heading "Curiosity, shell & picture dealers", and as a dealer in ancient seals. [4] As well as his work at the British Museum, he may have been a collector. [7]

According to the obituary in The Athenæum, Doubleday died "after a long illness" on 25 January 1856, "in the fifty-seventh year of his age". [1] The illness was termed "extreme" by colleagues, such that he was unreachable for months. [89] Obituaries were published in The Athenæum and The Gentleman's Magazine , [1] [2] [note 7] and he was buried in Kensal Green Cemetery. [4] His will was made only six days before his death. [4] His entire estate was left to Elizabeth Bewsey, the daughter of a deceased bookkeeper; she was apparently not the Elizabeth to whom Doubleday was married, making it a bequest that seemingly left nothing for his wife or daughters. [4] His library was sold by Sotheby's that April. [4] [91] The 322 lots combined to fetch £228 2s6d (equivalent to £24,200in 2019). [92]

Notes

  1. ↑ Doubleday's year of birth, let alone date, is uncertain. Contemporary obituaries in The Athenæum and The Gentleman's Magazine describe his death as occurring in his fifty-seventh year, [1] [2] which would indicate a birthday between January 1799 and January 1800. The 1851 census, recorded on 30 March, [3] puts his age at 53, [4] [5] consistent with a birthday between March 1797 and March 1798. Cemetery records from his burial record his age as 59, [4] as does his headstone, indicating a birthday between January 1796 and January 1797.
  2. ↑ A second reason for the second reconstruction was the rediscovery of the 37 pieces unincorporated by Doubleday. [29] Three of these, from the inside of the vase, were placed by Axtell. [30] By the end of the Williams reconstruction, only 17 fragments remained. [31]
  3. ↑ Sixteen years later, while writing about catching a servant in the act of stealing from him, Newton would declare that "I have not seen so livid and hideous a complexion since the day when Timoleon Pericles Vlastò was detected stealing coins from the British Museum." [48]
  4. ↑ By the 1923 edition, references to Doubleday being a forger were removed from the dictionary. [85]
  5. ↑ The inscription reads:

    To the memory
    of
    John Doubleday
    of the parish of Bloomsbury
    who departed this life
    25th January 1856
    aged 59 years

    Also of Louisa Doubleday
    fourth daughter of the above
    who departed this life 30th Nov 1858
    aged 11 years

    Also of Julia Bewsey
    youngest daughter of the above
    who died January 19th 1886
    aged 36 years

    Also Elizabeth Doubleday
    widow of the above
    who died May 21st 1889
    aged 83 years

    Also of Eliza Doubleday
    eldest daughter of the above
    who died January 25th 1929
    aged 90 years

  6. ↑ Doubleday was also noted as being one of two with the same surname employed at the British Museum at the same time; the other, Edward Doubleday, was an unrelated English entomologist. [86]
  7. ↑ The latter was republished in The Annual Register the following year. [90]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William Henry Smyth</span> British naval officer

Admiral William Henry Smyth was a Royal Navy officer, hydrographer, astronomer and numismatist. He is noted for his involvement in the early history of a number of learned societies, for his hydrographic charts, for his astronomical work, and for a wide range of publications and translations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Evans (archaeologist)</span>

Sir John Evans was an English archaeologist and geologist.

Reginald Stuart Poole, known as Stuart Poole, was an English archaeologist, numismatist and Orientalist. Poole was from a famous Orientalist family as his mother Sophia Lane Poole, his uncle Edward William Lane and his nephew Stanley Lane-Poole famous for their work in this field. His other uncle was Richard James Lane, a distinguished Victorian lithographer and engraver.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alexander Cunningham</span> British Army engineer (1814–1893)

Major General Sir Alexander Cunningham was a British Army engineer with the Bengal Engineer Group who later took an interest in the history and archaeology of India. In 1861, he was appointed to the newly created position of archaeological surveyor to the government of India; and he founded and organised what later became the Archaeological Survey of India.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Francis Walker (entomologist)</span> English entomologist (1809-1874)

Francis Walker was an English entomologist. He was born in Southgate, London, on 31 July 1809 and died at Wanstead, England on 5 October 1874. He was one of the most prolific authors in entomology, and stirred controversy during his later life as his publications resulted in a huge number of junior synonyms. However, his assiduous work on the collections of the British Museum had great significance.

John Yonge Akerman (1806–1873) was an English antiquarian specializing mainly in numismatics. He also wrote under the pseudonym Paul Pindar.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Henry Ellis (librarian)</span> English librarian and antiquarian

Sir Henry Ellis was an English librarian and antiquarian, for a long period principal librarian at the British Museum.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Charles Roach Smith</span> English antiquarian

Charles Roach Smith, FSA, was an English antiquarian and amateur archaeologist who was elected a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London, and the London Numismatic Society. He was a founding member of the British Archaeological Association. Roach Smith pioneered the statistical study of Roman coin hoards.

Henry Perigal Borrell was a British numismatist. He was the son of John Henry Borrell, a London clockmaker from Couvet, and Kitty Borrell. Having learned the numismatics trade in London, he traveled to the Ottoman Empire and set up home and shop in Smyrna as a trader, from 1818 right up until his death. Two years after his arrival, in 1820, he married Emelia Boddington in Smyrna. In the 1820s, he obtained an inscription from Aphrodisias, a copy of which he sent to August Boeckh. In 1838 he met the 6th Duke of Devonshire at Smyrna and sold him the Chatsworth Head. Via the Bank of England, Borrell also supplied coins to the British Museum.

Warwick William Wroth was a numismatist and biographer. He was Senior Assistant Keeper of Coins and Medals in the British Museum and one of the original contributors to the Dictionary of National Biography, with which he was associated almost until its completion.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">James B. Longacre</span> American portraitist and engraver (1794–1869)

James Barton Longacre was an American portraitist and engraver, and the fourth Chief Engraver of the United States Mint from 1844 until his death. Longacre is best known for designing the Indian Head cent, which entered commerce in 1859, and for the designs of the Shield nickel, Flying Eagle cent and other coins of the mid-19th century.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Franklin Peale</span> Employee and officer of the Philadelphia Mint

Benjamin Franklin Peale was an employee and officer of the Philadelphia Mint from 1833 to 1854. Although Peale introduced many innovations to the Mint of the United States, he was eventually dismissed amid allegations he had used his position for personal gain.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wardak Vase</span>

The Wardak Vase is an ancient globular-shaped buddhist copper vase that was found as part of a stupa relic deposit in the early nineteenth century in the Wardak Province of Afghanistan. The importance of the vase lies in the long Kharoshthi inscription which dates the objects to around 178 AD and claims that the stupa contained the sacred relics of the Buddha. Since 1880, the vase has been part of the British Museum's Asian collection.

Walter Hawkins was a British ship and insurance broker, antiquarian and numismatist, based in the City of London.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thomas Reade</span> English army officer and consul in Tunis (1782–1849)

Sir Thomas Reade was a British army officer during the Napoleonic Wars, known also as a collector.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William Debonaire Haggard</span>

William Debonaire Haggard FSA, FRAS was a banker of the city of London, a numismatist, and an expert on bullion. He was the Principal of the Bullion Office of the Bank of England in the 1840s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elizabeth Pirie</span> British numismatist

Elizabeth Jean Elphinstone Pirie was a British numismatist specialising in ninth-century Northumbrian coinage, and museum curator, latterly as Keeper of Archaeology at Leeds City Museum from 1960 to 1991. She wrote eight books and dozens of articles throughout her career. She was a fellow of the Royal Numismatic Society, president of the Yorkshire Numismatic Society and a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London.

George Richard Corner (1801–1863) was a 19th-century English antiquarian. He published many articles on the history of Southwark, across several journals, and two books on the borough.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hexham Hoard</span> Hoard of ninth-century stycas

The Hexham hoard is a 9th-century hoard of eight thousand copper-alloy coins of the Anglo-Saxon Kingdom of Northumbria, which were discovered whilst a grave was being dug close to Hexham Abbey in 1832.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 Athenæum 1856a, p. 140.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Gentleman's Magazine 1856, p. 431.
  3. ↑ National Archives 2010.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 Simon 2018.
  5. 1 2 English Census 1851.
  6. 1 2 Forrer 1904.
  7. 1 2 British Museum Doubleday.
  8. 1 2 British Museum acquisitions 1848.
  9. ↑ British Museum benefactors 1883, p. xxvii.
  10. ↑ Fennell 1842, p. 56.
  11. ↑ British Museum acquisitions 1833, pp. 155, 212.
  12. ↑ Harvey & McGuinness 1996, p. 25.
  13. ↑ Oddy 1993, pp. 10–11.
  14. ↑ Budge 1925, p. 150.
  15. ↑ Journal of Glass Studies Foreword 1990.
  16. ↑ Painter & Whitehouse 1990, p. 65.
  17. 1 2 3 Painter & Whitehouse 1990, p. 69.
  18. ↑ Williams 1989, pp. 5–6.
  19. ↑ Archaeologia Appendix 1846, p. 500.
  20. ↑ Gentleman's Magazine 1846b, p. 409.
  21. ↑ Painter & Whitehouse 1990, pp. 69–71, 82–83.
  22. 1 2 Gentleman's Magazine 1846a, p. 41.
  23. ↑ Wilson 2002, p. 112.
  24. ↑ Morning Post 1845.
  25. 1 2 Oddy 2006.
  26. 1 2 Painter & Whitehouse 1990, pp. 82–84.
  27. ↑ Williams 1989, pp. 5–6, 29.
  28. ↑ Williams 1989.
  29. ↑ Painter & Whitehouse 1990, p. 82.
  30. ↑ Painter & Whitehouse 1990, p. 83.
  31. ↑ Williams 1989, p. 19.
  32. ↑ Reade 2008, pp. 19–20.
  33. ↑ Reade 2008, p. 20.
  34. 1 2 Budge 1925, pp. 147–148.
  35. ↑ Budge 1925, pp. xviii, 148.
  36. ↑ Budge 1925, pp. ii, 148.
  37. ↑ Reade 2017, p. 182.
  38. ↑ Budge 1925, p. 148.
  39. ↑ Budge 1925, pp. 148–149.
  40. ↑ Reade 2017, p. 197.
  41. ↑ Reade 2017, pp. 182, 184.
  42. 1 2 Westgarth 2009, p. 89.
  43. ↑ Old Bailey Proceedings 1841.
  44. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Morning Post 1849.
  45. ↑ Pembrokeshire Herald 1849.
  46. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Akerman 1850.
  47. 1 2 The Era 1849.
  48. ↑ Newton 1865, p. 17.
  49. ↑ The Spectator 1849a.
  50. ↑ Morning Chronicle 1849.
  51. ↑ Bury and Norwich Post 1849.
  52. ↑ The Spectator 1849b.
  53. ↑ The Examiner 1849.
  54. ↑ Macaulay 2008, p. 64.
  55. ↑ Maitland Mercury 1849.
  56. ↑ Old Bailey Proceedings 1849.
  57. ↑ Pickup 2017.
  58. 1 2 3 4 Silliman 1835, p. 75.
  59. ↑ Sotheby's catalogue 1839, p. 26.
  60. ↑ Archaeologia Presents 1836, p. 490.
  61. ↑ Shenton 2015.
  62. ↑ Millett snuff box.
  63. ↑ Millett lead seal.
  64. ↑ Millett Shakespeare's tree.
  65. ↑ Akerman 1834.
  66. 1 2 Winkles & Winkles 1851, p. vii n.14.
  67. ↑ Sims 1861, p. 299.
  68. ↑ Petrie, Sharpe & Hardy 1848, pp. clii–clxxiii.
  69. ↑ Archaeologia Appendix 1836, pp. 460–461.
  70. ↑ Vincent 2015, p. 10 n.23.
  71. ↑ Gentleman's Magazine 1836, p. 81.
  72. ↑ Gentleman's Magazine 1845, p. 176.
  73. ↑ Archaeologia Appendix 1847, p. 408.
  74. 1 2 Silliman 1835, pp. 75–77.
  75. ↑ Green 1857, p. 148 n.3.
  76. ↑ Madden 1856, p. 367 n.5.
  77. ↑ British Museum Select Committee 1836, p. 490.
  78. ↑ Mechanics' Magazine 1837.
  79. ↑ Rose 1850–1851, pp. 158–159, 165.
  80. ↑ H. 1837, p. 338.
  81. ↑ Brown 1845, p. 30.
  82. ↑ Notes and Queries 1858.
  83. ↑ Numismatic Chronicle 1849, p. 136.
  84. ↑ Williams 1993.
  85. ↑ Forrer 1923.
  86. 1 2 Knight 1859, p. 378.
  87. ↑ Burgon 1841.
  88. ↑ Carson 1986, pp. 3, 5–6, 59.
  89. ↑ Walford & Way 1856, pp. 70–71.
  90. ↑ The Annual Register 1857, p. 235.
  91. ↑ Athenæum 1856b.
  92. ↑ Sotheby's catalogue 1856, p. 20.

Bibliography

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.