A New Way to Explore our Collections
Discover the life and work of porcelain painter William Billingsley in our first online gallery.
Mansfield Museum is exploring exciting ways to share our historic collections, including our brand new online galleries!
Most museums look after many more objects than they can put on display. Mansfield Museum is no exception. Our store-rooms are full of fascinating items which we are preserving and researching but only a small sample can fit in the museum galleries. We make these stored items available to our users in lots of ways - a programme of changing exhibitions, books and pamphlets in our museum shop, enquiry services, and the chance for store tours and research visits. We have also started finding ways to put our objects online. We have a blog called Collection Stories sharing interesting tales about our artefacts, and you can browse parts of our object catalogue online too.
Our latest innovation is online galleries. All our objects are important, but some are especially notable! We want to showcase these special collections on our website, so people can view the objects even when they're not on display.
Our first online gallery is now live. It tells the story of William Billingsley, an expert artist who painted beautiful designs on porcelain. Billingsley worked in many important china factories at the turn of the 19th century, and set up a business in Mansfield for a few years. The museum looks after items decorated by Billingsley, from Mansfield and elsewhere. Our new gallery lets you learn about his history and examine the objects he painted, which now live in Mansfield Museum. Click here to start exploring!