Dylan is the latest addition to
THE last portrait of poet Dylan Thomas has arrived at Carmarthenshire County Museum, where it joined thousands of other objects and artefacts which provide a glimpse into the past.
Painted at Thomas’s Boathouse and writing shed in Laugharne by artist Gordon Stuart in September, 1953 – two months before the poet’s death - the portrait was bought at auction by Carmarthenshire Council for £15,000.
The council-run museums service has around 42,000 “accessions” – a number assigned to each acquisition – which comprise some 70,000 individual objects. Only a small proportion can be displayed at any one time.
Some objects are extremely old, like the 50,000-year-old woolly rhinoceros and hyena bones found at a cave near Pendine.
From fossils to minerals, medals, weapons, coins, pottery, books, paintings, apothecary jars, 18th Century shop signs, milk churns and cheese presses, the collection covers expected and unexpected bases.
“I don’t think there is a single person who knows everything about the collection,” said museums development manager Morrigan Mason, who started what was then a new post in 2016.
She said the objects were catalogued on a database and that a new system was being created to enable the public to access them.
“I think there’s a real appetite for people to understand what’s in their museums,” she said.
The county museum was founded by the Carmarthenshire Antiquarian Society in 1908.
Objects are also kept and displayed at Parc Howard Museum, Llanelli. Both sites are benefiting from investment, with Parc Howard due to reopen next Easter.
Meanwhile, the exhibition space in the new-look Sands of Speed Museum at Pendine will be much larger when it opens than its predecessor, the Museum of Speed. Items are also stored at Kidwelly Industrial Museum.
Some objects, like early Christian standing stones, require specialist hoists to move them.
One of these, the Voteporix stone, is a memorial to a 6th Century king of Dyfed. Its inscription translates as: ‘In Memorial of Voteporix: The Protector’. Hay loaders and carts, meanwhile, take up a lot of space.
Mrs Mason’s particular interest is art and portraiture, hence her excitement when a portrait acquired from the Golden Grove estate, near Llandeilo, was found to have been the work of 17th Century artist Mary Beale. It had been attributed to “artist unknown”.
The discovery featured on a BBC Four programme, Britain’s Lost Masterpieces, in 2017.
“We keep on discovering what we don’t know,” said Mrs Mason. “We find more gems within our collection – I think that’s what’s so exciting about it.”
The process by which the museums service acquires new items depends on what the item is, its value and its source.
With an archaeologist, industrial archaeologist, conservator and art historian in its ranks, the service has expertise to draw from.
“We can take quite a well-rounded view of an object, its long-term cost, whether it can be displayed, and whether it has research or educational value,” said Mrs Mason.
More expertise, as well as financial backing for new acquisitions, is provided by The Friends of Carmarthenshire Museum.
“We only have a small pot of money,” said Mrs Mason. “More often than not we have to fundraise.”
The majority of the £15,000 for the Thomas portrait came from the Art Fund charity and the V&A Purchase Grant Fund.
Mrs Mason said the museums service had two independent valuations and a consultation assessment carried out before bidding for the portrait.
Finally seeing it in the flesh for the first time, on May 14, was a thrill.
“It was really moving,” said Mrs Mason. “The significance was the last portrait. You can see he is unwell. His head is down,