Artisan Lecture - Master and Apprentice: The Transfer of Skills in the London Huguenot Community 1680-1760

Partnership with The Huguenot Society of America 

Wednesday, May 9th AT THE GENERAL SOCIETY LIBRARY
The lecture starts at 6:30 P.M.  – RECEPTION TO FOLLOW
In her lecture, Deputy Keeper, Tessa Murdoch from the internationally renowned Victoria & Albert Museum (V&A), will describe the transfer of skills within the established community of Huguenot settlers in London which became the principal European city of refuge for French Protestants in the late 17th century.  She will detail the range of luxury crafts in which the Huguenot artisans excelled and will focus on the goldsmiths' and watchmakers' trades demonstrating how their skills developed from their origins in regional French cities within the stimulating opportunities provided by the British metropolis.  The close familial networks, the specialization, division of labor, and marketing skills were enhanced through establishment of reputation for skills and quality, passed from generation to generation. Ms. Murdoch will illustrate the talk with Huguenot portraits and luxury goods in museum collections including the newly established Huguenot Museum in Rochester, Kent, just outside London.
 Elected Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries in 1988, Ms. Murdoch joined the V&A Furniture and Woodwork Department in 1990 assisting with research for the acclaimed British Galleries. In 2002 she was appointed Deputy Keeper, Sculpture, Metalwork, Ceramics and Glass and Head of Metalwork at the V&A. She was lead curator for the V&A’s 2005 Sacred Silver and Stained Glass Galleries and the 2009 Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert Galleries. Publications include Noble Households: Eighteenth Century Inventories of Great English Houses (2006) and Beyond the Border: Huguenot Goldsmiths in Northern Europe and North America(2008). For the 2012/2013 exchange of exhibitions between the V&A and the Moscow Kremlin Museums she co-edited The Golden Age of the English Court from Henry VIII to Charles I, Moscow, 2012 and London 2013 Treasures of the Royal Courts:Tudors, Stuarts & the Russian Tsars. Tessa Murdoch’s PhD Huguenot Artists, Designers and Craftsmen in Great Britain and Ireland, 1680-1760, (University of London, 1982) fed into the Museum of London exhibition The Quiet Conquest: The Huguenots 1685-1985.
 
THE GENERAL SOCIETY LIBRARY
20 WEST 44th Street (BETWEEN 5TH AND 6th AVENUES), New York City.
Advance registration is recommended.  Free Admission

This program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural  A­ffairs, in partnership with the City Council.