Afterlife: ‘museumisation’

Once in the museum, the objects were catalogued: each was given a unique accession number, described, and all known details recorded in the museum’s catalogue of accessions. This is the basis of the information that you have been studying in the Museum’s database.

The museum database also shows subsequent events in the netsuke’s life. It was lightly cleaned on 24 June 2009, displayed to the public from 1 July to 25 October as part of the exhibition ‘Japan from prehistory to the present’ at the British Museum, and then displayed again from October 2010 to 14 February 2011 in the same exhibition. Thousands of people must have seen it, a striking contrast to the time it was owned by Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester, when there is no record of it being seen by anyone.