Online Exhibition: Artisans And Craft-Production In Nineteenth-Century Scotland

The Artisans and Craft-Production in Nineteenth-Century Scotland online exhibition is now available to view:

Online Exhibition

Photographs, portraits and hand-made objects held in Scotland’s museums and archives tell the story of Scotland’s artisans, and how their skills and working practices survived and adapted in an era more commonly associated with industrialisation. Curated by a team of researchers, led by Professor Stana Nenadic at the School of History, Classics and Archaeology at  TheUniversity of Edinburgh, the exhibition forms part of the three year Leverhulme Trust funded project, ‘Artisans and the Craft Economy in Scotland 1780-1914’ (RPG-2012-247).

In five themed sections – Handmade and Design, Vernacular and Place, Portraits, Workshops, and Trades and Communities – the exhibition shows how a skilled workforce and individual craft-producers responded to changing social conditions by adapting, evolving and sometimes inventing new traditions to produce products, buildings and places that captured the imagination of Scotland’s visitors and home consumers.  Images of Scottish jewellery, textiles, metalwork, glass and ceramics illustrate the enduring economic and cultural significance of the hand-made in the nineteenth century, and more particularly the resonance of traditional craftsmanship that was associated with Scottish production.