No Happily Ever After - Nursery Rhymes and Political Cartoons

As a placement student at Abbey House Museum, I get to spend my time looking through their fantastic collections. I’m currently helping develop some initial ideas for an upcoming exhibition on Fantasy and Fairy Tales. Everyday I’m surprised by what I find here at Abbey House, and today I’m excited to share one of those discoveries.

One of the things that surprised me during my research is how characters, settings and stories from fairytales never stay where they’re supposed to. They’re forever popping up in unexpected places. One place I kept encountering them over and over again is within political cartoons. When we look at these cartoons, the well-known stories from our childhoods come back to help us understand the adult world we’re now part of.

(This photograph was taken for Leeds Museums and Galleries and is licensed under Creative Commons BY NC SA)

One of my favourites (pictured above) is taken from a publication called The Political Drama. It shows the French King Louis Philippe I, dressed to the nines in royal garb and … shaped like an egg. He’s sitting on a wall and his across his stomach reads ‘A Rotten Egg’.

We’ve probably all heard politicians and public figures described as “rotten”. However, the use of the Humpty Dumpty story tells us a bit more about the artist’s opinion of the King. Across the bottom of the page a rhyme reads “Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall, should Humpty Dumpty have a great fall, not all Europe’s armies, and double ten-score could put Humpty Dumpty up as he was before”. 

After the abdication of Napoleon, Louis Philippe returned to France from exile – in 1830 he was declared the new King of France. However, the reference to Humpty Dumpty in this cartoon reminds us that things, once broken, are not easily mended. The Bastille and the guillotine – great icons of the anti-royalist French Revolution – loom over King Louis’ reign. Can things ever return to normal after such a great fall, the cartoonist asks? 

By Anna Turner, Work Placement Student at Abbey House Museum

Store tours at Leeds Museums Discovery Centre

Last April I began working as a Volunteer Tour Guide at Leeds Museums Discovery Centre.

Every Thursday at 11am and 2pm I tour this purpose-built store highlighting objects from our social history, geology, world cultures, archaeology, natural science and dress and textile collections. This is where we store, protect and care for the one million objects (approximately 95% of the city's museum collections) that are not currently on display at any of the city's nine museum sites. The tours are open to everyone, we just ask that you phone or email to confirm your place. I think this might be the most exciting building in Leeds.


Having learnt the tour script I was encouraged to explore the store and add in new objects of interest. This is ongoing, adding in the new stuff. The discovery is constant and being able to talk competently and enthusiastically about many things is the best kind of challenge. We walk the tours with a set route yet a flexible itinerary of objects because as a working environment, the objects can change location. The other thing that changes is you, the visitor.  

I had the privilege of shadowing a tour by the World Cultures Curator Antonia Lovelace and saw how her ease with the visitors allowed their interests and stories to shape the experience. This liberated me from my detailed script. I learnt to prioritise the visitor over the objects, less time speeding from object to object and more time allowing the objects to work as little connectors, go-betweens of human experience. Facts and information resonate at every shelf, every box; the trick is to allow conversation too because then the knowledge sharing becomes extra-ordinary.

Visitors often ask “What is this?” but the store really opens up when visitors talk about objects that they recognize and have knowledge of. Every object is recorded on our museum database but inevitably many lie unseen or unnoticed. The more visitors that come, the more objects awaken. The more conversations we have, the greater the democratization of our knowledge and the more able we are to celebrate our communal value. Talking is good, come and join the conversation!

How to find the Discovery Centre:
Leeds Museums Discovery Centre is located on Carlisle Road, 1.5 miles south from the city centre, near Leeds Dock and the Royal Armouries Museum.  

Get in touch:
For more information about visiting our store, please contact us on 0113 378 2100, email discovery.centre@leeds.gov.uk or visit our website.


By Pamela Crowe, Volunteer Store Tour Guide

Faces in Japanese Art

Looking at Japanese faces in the Leeds collections

Japanese Kokeshi dolls from the Leeds Museums
and Galleries collections

Woodblock print of Kokeshi dolls
by Kaoru Kawano 

As a keen reader of Japanese manga and a fan of Japanese style, I was interested in looking at the range of masks and dolls in the Leeds Museums and Galleries collections.

I wanted to investigate how the different styles of faces varied in preparation for the ‘Making Faces’ workshop on 19 February at Leeds City Museum (accompanying the Changing Faces of Leeds exhibition, which is on until 5 June 2016).

Leeds Art Gallery has one Japanese woodblock print (pictured above right) by the artist Kaoru Kawano featuring the distinctive Kokeshi dolls, simple wooden dolls with a limbless turned wooden body and a spherical head. Kokeshi originated amongst the villages of rice farmers near Tohoko in northern Japan, and there is now a huge literature on them, as collecting them became a craze a few years ago. 

The face on this print has just a straight line for the eye line, and two dots for the nostrils. The few Kokeshi in the Leeds collections are quite small. My favourite set is a male and female pair, both nested dolls, as indicated on the box cover. They have high arched thin eyebrows, two simple lines for the eyes and a double red dot for the mouth.

Japanese No theatre mask, 1980
(Leeds Museums and Galleries)

No Theatre Mask (1980)

Compare the Kokeshi dolls with the face on the No theatre mask from 1980, representing a beautiful young woman. The eyes are narrow half-ovals, blackened with pierced pupils, the nose and mouth have a realistic modelling and the blackening of the teeth shows a traditional practice. 

High eyebrows were much admired and known as Hikimayu, Okimayu or ‘Skybrows’. Many geisha and upper class beauties would have their eyebrows shaved and then pencilled in to make them appear higher. By the Edo period this practice was restricted to married women, and in 1870 it was banned.

Kimekoni dolls

Kimekoni doll purchased
from Liberty's, 1980.
(Leeds Museums and Galleries)

Many modern Japanese dolls have just slightly high eyebrows, all pencil thin well-defined curves, rather than the Hikimayu. One of the best Japanese dolls at Leeds is this doll above, of a type called kimekoni, made of compacted sawdust, silk brocade and paper.

For years we thought this was a court servant doll, as displayed in wealthy homes at the Girls' Festival on 3 March. At the Girls' Day festival dolls are set up on a tiered plinth or set of shelves to represent the emperor and empress of Japan, their courtiers, servants and possessions. The Hina-Ningyo were seen as Yorishiro, a temporary resting placed for the imperial spirits to come down and bless the home. 

However, in Alan Scott Pate’s Japanese Dolls, The Fascinating World of Ningyo, we noticed that Scott identifies two dolls carrying pails, as the character Matsukaze, from the play Shiokumi.

Another kimekoni doll in Leeds (see below) has intriguing red hair. I discovered a very similar doll, described as a No theatre character called Sho-Jo, a young red-hair drunkard, as shown on the Japonic.com website. 

He is dancing with a big round wine cup in one hand and a wine scooper in the other. The actor is dressed in a richly brocaded stage costume and a long red hair wig.  Leeds has a technical series showing how the kimekoni dolls are made (above left), from compacted sawdust mixed with glue.                                 

In Japanese, 'Kimekomi' means 'tuck in' in Japanese. The clothes made of silk brocade are attached gradually. The doll's face is covered in highly burnished gofun (crashed oyster shell) and hand-painted artistically and the wig is made of artificial hair. One cannot tell from the length of the hair or the facial features, whether these dolls are male or female.  The red hair seems to be a symbol of spiritual power or special skills. Its really popular as an 'alternative' colour in cosplay and modern teenage fashion. 

Faces in Manga

Faces in Japanese Manga can also be semi-realistic, or very abstract. I picked out two new manga for the Leeds Museums and Galleries collections. They included Tokyo Ghoul 3, by Sui Ishida and Naruto 30. 

I love the ‘Naruto’ stories by the artist Masashi Kishimoto. Naruto is a ninja in training. We chose number 30 because we liked the image of the strong female protagonist, Sakura, with the black gloves and pink hair on the cover (pictured left). Her downturned mouth curve shows her grim determination. 

I have really enjoyed looking at all the different stylised faces in the World Cultures Collections at Leeds Museums and Galleries.

By Becky Stone (placement student)

Dragon Ball Z comes to Leeds Museums!

Creating an action adventure display

By Anawara Begum (Voices of Asia Project Placement Student)

I am a big fan of Japanese anime and Dragon Ball Z in particular. After discussion with the world cultures curator Antonia we took a proposal to the Collection Development Committee that Leeds acquire a Dragon Ball Z Cell Saga poster, along with a Goku action figure and a Frieza Pop Vinyl. They agreed and today we finalised a display arrangement in a corridor case here at Leeds Discovery Centre to showcase these new purchases.

To give more historical depth to the display we picked a Batman mask and a tiny Robin figure as an American contrast to the Pokémon Pikachu toy that is already in the collection. Pokémon was created by Satoshi Tajiri in 1995, and this franchise began as a video game. 

If you walk into Forbidden Planet in Leeds this month the Pop Vinyl figures occupy a whole wall. They are the big craze of the toy world at the moment. They include Marvel characters, as well as Japanese anime figures and even Harry Potter versions.

What is Dragon Ball Z?
Dragon Ball Z is currently the most famous and popular Japanese anime watched by millions worldwide. It was created by Akira Toriyama as a manga (graphic novel) in 1988 and the anime (animation) came out the following year. The warrior hero Goku defends Planet Earth with his friends from evil villains such as Frieza. Goku's nemesis the villain Frieza fears a rival who may surpass his own might so he blows up planet Vageta to prevent this from happening. During their battle Goku eventually beats Frieza, but never kills him. 

In Dragon Ball Z there are many storylines which take place over hundreds of episodes, drawing you in to a world of action and fantasy.

This Dragon Ball Z poster (pictured above) was acquired a few weeks ago and it shows a large number of characters alongside Goku. 

Naruto Manga on display:
As well as the Dragon Ball Z items the current display includes a Naruto manga by Masashi Kishimoto, chosen by Becky Stone. This was purchased to complement five manga already in the Leeds collections, bought for the 2001 'Tales from  Japan' exhibition. The manga was first published in 1997, and the anime first aired in Japan in 2002. Naruto is a slightly more contemporary manga and anime than Dragon Ball Z and has also has a large fan base. 

Having this manga on display in the same case will be a great way for some direct comparisons with the Dragon Ball Z Goku and Freeza figures. It is interesting that these anime have similar storylines - the main character usually fights the strongest enemy and always tries to protect their friends from harm. Both Naruto and Goku have similar traits when they are not fighting -  they just love eating and somehow get themselves into trouble. Batman and Ash from Pokémon also train to get stronger but they have different goals - they still believe in doing the right thing.

Who is Naruto?
Naruto is about a young adolescent boy who dreams of becoming the Hokage (village leader) so that he can win the respect of the whole village, as he is seen as an outcast. He always used to get into trouble in order to get noticed in a village that despised him and he never truly understood why he was seen as a pest. Through his ninja training Naruto starts to get stronger and gained the respect of his comrades. Naruto believes that by getting stronger he will be able to protect his friends. Because of his strong will eventually everyone wants to help him.

Why I love anime
Since primary school my siblings and I (especially my two brothers) have always been interested in any shows that were full with action, such as Dragon Ball Z. I used to watch the anime programmes regularly in the evening. My favourite villain was Majin Buu, a pink character that was not aware how powerful he was and loved eating! 

My younger brother is always ready with his opinions on the storylines and characters and I have discussed the acquisitions and displays with him. When I showed him photos of the new mini display he said: ‘It’s [just] ok, I won’t lie about that, I wouldn’t come to see it, it would  have been better if there was more villains’ [you need to do a much bigger and move complex display!].

We hope that anime fans and visitors who grew  up with the cartoons will get a frisson of recognition when they see the Dragon Ball Z and Naruto Manga display on show in the Voices of Asia gallery in Leeds City Museum later this year!

Artspace on the Move

Have you ever wondered what happens when an exhibition closes? Beyond the physical packing up and sending objects on for new exhibitions or into storage, what about the impression the exhibition leaves behind? Is it a clean break, or does it linger like perfume spray?

As the opening venue for British Art Show 8 there was an energy and excitement surrounding Leeds Art Gallery and the city itself, something we are hoping to continue even after the exhibition had moved on. We have been inspired by the artists Martino Gamper and Ciara Phillips who were interested in collaborating with members of the public.

Gamper, a self-described designer, not artist, worked with local artisans and skilled craftspeople to showcase the repairing of damaged and forgotten items. This included shoe-cobblers repairing soles of shoes, book binders re-binding books, and chair caners fixing chairs. Each artisan also added a design developed by Gamper, co-producing a ‘unique piece of design’ (as it says in the exhibition catalogue).This practise strengthened a conversation within our wider community about the value of objects in our culture. It also considered the way in which we as a society have a tendency to throw things out rather than expending energy to revive them.

During the recent half-term holiday, we took pop-up activities inspired by the collaborative and transformative qualities of Gamper’s work to Leeds Trinity Kitchen. We invited families and young people to repair or bring a new life to damaged or unwanted objects. Our team were on site to encourage imagination and help realise their designs and ideas (and operate the hot glue gun!).

These pictures show their artworks ranging from books to trophies, animals to new tools. 



Basket turned in to a squid



Toy car transformed in to a butterfly and clock made in to wall-art



Toy giraffe transformed in to doll and a cardboard tube turned in to cannon

Cardboard tube and wooden letters transformed into a trophy



By Corinne Foskey, Learning Officer Intern 

Exploring the military cap badge collection

As a student from the University of Leeds, I’ve been lucky enough to undertake my placement year with Leeds Museums and Galleries. It’s been a fantastic year and it has given me so many amazing opportunities that I would not otherwise have had. This is the first in a series of blog posts detailing the various things I have been involved in.

I've been cataloguing the Museum’s collection of cap badges. There are almost 400 of them, ranging from obsolete badges which are no longer in use, to more up to date versions still seen on uniforms today.

Cataloguing includes taking photographs of objects and adding them to the database. Associated people and places must be added, as well as a description and how the object came into Leeds Museum’s collection. This can be anything from a loan to a bequest. Each object is also assigned a category. Cap badges fit into two of the pre-existing categories on the system – costume and military. Some of them also fit into First World War and Second World War. This all means that when someone needs to find an object, they can search by lots of different things, from category to date and description.

Whilst looking at the badges, I was struck by how different each one is. Some have battle honours displayed upon them, a record of the heritage of a regiment and the courage of those who have fought under that name. The battles stretch from Waterloo to the First World War, testament to how long some regiments have continued, despite any upheaval in the armed forces. There are also countless depictions of animals on badges, from dragons and tigers to horses and stags.

Artists Rifles cap badge, taken for Leeds Museums and licenced under Creative Commons BY NC SA

One of my favourite badges is that of the Artists Rifles (now the Special Air Service Regiment). The badge, designed by J.W. Wyon shows Minervra and Mars in profile – two classical figures linked to warfare. There is only one example of this particular badge in the collection. It comes from a regiment first developed as a volunteer movement and created by an art student. Some of the first recruits in the 1860s were actors, painters and even architects, along with others who were involved in creative endeavours.

However, this exclusivity did not last. Once the 1860s were over, the recruitment basis of the regiment broadened to include doctors, lawyers and other professions. Their recruitment remained more open, but they continued to attract those from the public schools and universities. During the First World War, Wilfred Owen was a member of the regiments Officer Training Corps.

Each regiment has its own badge and its own story. Each badge is a small window into a textured history that reveals something new with every subsequent look, be it an extraordinary tale of courage or a story behind the adoption of a motto.

By Laura Varley, First World War Project Placement Student