In this talk, exhibition production specialist Steve Deane and curatorial staff assistant Erica Lawton share with you an amazingly intricate silver cup in the shape of a fox head. They explain how the cup was made, how its use was tied to hunting, and how our exhibition team made the cup “float” for display. They also create a fox sculpture from Play-Doh and look at a series of prints of Reynard the Fox and a small fox sculpture from the fifth century.
After watching the talk, we invite you to try making your own Play-Doh fox sculpture and to continue hunting for foxes at the Harvard Art Museums through the online collection hvrd.art/creaturefeature-fox.
Creature Feature, an online series from the Harvard Art Museums, offers a chance for families to discover magical creatures across the collections through close looking and curious exploration with museum staff.
Led by:
Steve Deane, Exhibition Production Specialist, Collections Management
Erica Lawton, Staff Assistant, Division of European and American Art
Works explored:
Thomas Pitts I, British, Stirrup cup in the form of a fox’s head, 1771. Silver with gilt remnants. Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Paul Clarke Stauffer Fund, 2012.6.
Utagawa Hiroshige, New Year’s Eve Foxfires at the Changing Tree, Japanese, Edo period, 1857. From the series One Hundred Famous Views of Edo. Woodblock print; ink and color on paper. Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Gift of the Friends of Arthur B. Duel, 1933.4.187.
Allart van Everdingen, Dutch, Reynard Disguises as Monk and Distracts Cock, 17th century. From Reynard the Fox. Etching. Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Gift of William Gray from the collection of Francis Calley Gray, G1414.
