Professors Abigail Williams and Adam Smyth of the Oxford English Faculty teach a course to third year undergraduates called Texts in Motion, about the material forms of books and the ways they circulate. Some years ago, they asked me to gather some material for a class in the Museum to help their students think about …
This is a story about casts. Plaster of Paris replicas of sculpture. And it is a story about three cast collections. It's also a story that involves a certain amount of straight talking about a gentleman’s unmentionables. You have been warned. Now, the cast gallery at the Ashmolean is one of the most interesting places …