Roman villa

Earlier in the week to the Roman Villa at the other side of Brading (reference 3), according to the record our first visit for two years (reference 2) - which is not the case. I can only suppose that last year's visit was not very memorable, although there was a related comment at reference 1.

Which is odd because I now remember that we went there last year to see a special exhibition about Romans and sex in an especially secured room with a very large and visible lock, with the star exhibit being a silver bowl called the Warren Cup, on loan from the British Museum. And not only can I trace no record on the blog, google, for once, returns no hits for the search term 'silver bowl nude men museum' while he does respond to 'roman bowl silver brading'. I offer left a relatively innocuous view from the BM.

This year it was the turn of Japanese cloisonné from the V&A, being mainly if not entirely the collection of one Edwin Davies, OBE, lately the boss of Strix Ltd, an outfit which seem to be inside pretty much all the electric kettles in the world, an outfit which started out as Castletown Thermostats on the Isle of Man. See reference 4.

I don't think I have ever come across cloisonné before and found this exhibition fascinating, although the term seems to be used a little loosely as not all the works seemed to involve the wire cloisons (from the French) for which the technique is named. Mostly vases and we assumed that they were made by applying the wire and enamel to a pottery - maybe porcelain - base and then fired, but I am now a little confused by talk turned up by google of applying the enamel to a copper base. Confused, but I stick for now with the pottery base theory, pottery which in this case was reinforced by metal collars around the obviously fragile lips and bases. It seems that a great deal of the stuff was produced in the late 19th century, when it was very popular with western collectors, collectors who presumably preferred what they regarded as traditional Japanese scenes and motifs, while the people who made it were open to other influences, with some pieces being clearly derived from delftware and others from art deco.

Unable to resolve the confusion as the promised guide book had failed to turn up at the shop. Perhaps a visit to the V&A, to the horse's mouth as it were, is indicated.

On to the café where we had another of their Roman cakes, a sort of flapjack with a anachronistic chocolate base.

Altogether an interesting example of the public archaeologist's art. An interesting site in a nice wrapping. combining the functions of education & enlightenment with that of a village hall.

From there to the beach at Yaverland where we had our first swim of the season. In additional to a guard ship provided by the navy, probably a frigate, we also had the company of a barque anchored out in the bay - a large three masted affair which, as lovers of barques will know, is square rigged on the fore mast and the main mast with the mizzen mast reserved for the mizzen and stay sails.

Further entertainment from a dad, who must have been a serious rugby player, at least once upon a time, training his two young sons in the mysteries, young sons of perhaps 4 and 6 who might, perhaps have been more interested in sand castles or splashing in the sea. Mum mostly hidden behind a wind break, her nose, I think, firmly in a holiday paperback,

Reference 1: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09/butser-hill.html.

Reference 2: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/brading-roman-villa.html.

Reference 3: http://www.bradingromanvilla.org.uk/.

Reference 4: http://www.strix.com/.