Saturday 9th April 2022

Venue: Chawton House

 

Watch conservator Victoria Stevens undertake conservation work on one of the treasures of our collection and stars of the exhibition Botanical Women: Elizabeth Blackwell’s A Curious Herbal (1737-1739).

Elizabeth Blackwell was the first woman in the Western world to produce a herbal- a compendium of plants and vegetables with medicinal properties. Blackwell saw a gap in the market for a work that repackaged scholarly works into a simple accessible form, providing key details about each plant and its uses, alongside a full-page image. Unusually, Blackwell was involved in every part of the process of publishing the work, writing the text, etching the images, and hand-colouring some copies: jobs that traditionally would have been undertaken by three different craftsmen.

Chawton House has one of only five copies of the first edition of A Curious Herbal to be found in public collections in the UK. Thanks to a conservation grant from the Leche Trust,  we have been able to exhibit it for the first time.

Victoria Stevens, who undertook the work to prepare the volumes for exhibition, returns to Chawton House in April to complete the finishing touches on-site.  Visitors to the exhibition can watch her work up close, ask her questions about her work on Blackwell’s pioneering herbal, and book conservation.

Included in admission price to the House. Victoria Stevens will working in the exhibition from 10am to 1pm.

About Victoria Stevens: 

Victoria Stevens ACR is a library and archive conservator accredited by the Institute of Conservation (Icon).

She has worked in written heritage conservation for over 25 years, mainly in the central library and college collections of the University of Oxford but also in local government museums, educational and religious libraries, and archives across the country. She now manages her own UK-wide conservation practice and preservation consultancy from her studio in Reading as well as being a leading tutor on the City and Guilds London Art School BA Book and Paper course.

You can find out more about her work by clicking here. 

Victoria Stevens conservation work in the collection of the Salters’ Company.