Museum Educational Tools
Museum Plaques: Decoded
Example: At the Philadelphia Museum of Art
For this artwork the museum has provided only a plaque with basic information.
Tomb Figure of a Bactrian Camel, 618-907 Chinese Earthenware with sancai (tricolor) glaze 32 x 10 x 25 inches (81.3 x 25.4 x 63.5 cm) Gift of Mrs. John Wintersteen, 1964 1964-9-1 |
Decoded:
(A) Tomb Figure of a Bactrian Camel, (B) 618-907 (C)Chinese (D) Earthenware with sancai (tricolor) glaze (E) 32 x 10 x 25 inches (81.3 x 25.4 x 63.5 cm) (F) Gift of Mrs. John Wintersteen, (G) 1964 (H) 1964-9-1 |
(A) the title of the artwork. In this case the object is an archeological artifact and the name of the artist and the original title are unknown. This title has been assigned by a modern day expert and is more descriptive of the artifact’s cultural background and the context that it was found in.
(B) an estimated date of the artwork’s creation. With archeological artifacts such as this one it is often impossible to know the exact date that the object was made. Experts usually assign a range of dates, based both on knowledge of the culture that the object came from as well as scientific data from the dig site, such as carbon dating techniques.
(C) the culture that created the object.
(D) the materials that the artist used.
(E) the dimensions of the work of art, its height, width and length. This is often included as a reference for those who access a museum catalogue online or in a book, so that they can understand how big the object is in real life.
(F) this explains the capacity in which the work of art appears in the museum. This object was donated to the museum by an individual.
(G) the date that the object was donated to the museum.
(H) the artwork’s catalogue number. Museums usually assign a number to every artwork in their collection and then organize them into a catalogue. Many museums have searchable catalogues online where information about artworks can be accessed by the title, collection or catalogue number.
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