Online Exhibitions

Here you can find a series of online exhibitions and more information about the collections you have seen in the Herbert, or read about elsewhere on this website.

These exhibitions will cover a wide range of subjects and will continue to grow over time to include many different aspects of our collections.

Board of Health Maps/Dr Nathanial Troughton drawings

Explore the centre of Coventry as it appeared in the middle of the 19th Century through a map and drawings of the time.

Behind The Scenes

The Herbert works with the people of Coventry to explore and celebrate the creative and cultural heritage of all of our communities. Currently, it is in the middle of a major redevelopment, which is scheduled for completion in 2008.

Francis Skidmore

Find out more about the famous Coventry metalworker. His work includes the Albert Memorial and the Hereford Cathedral Screen, now on display at the V&A Museum.

The Coventry Face Jug

Find out more about this fascinating medieval jug

Watercolour of the Month
The bridge, which has fourteen arches, was built about 1490. It is named after Sir Richard Clopton, Lord Mayor of London, who arranged the finance for it to be built. It still carries the main road over the River Avon.

William Wells Quatremain (also spelled Quatremaine) was born in 1857 at Gypsy Hill, Upper Norwood, London. On the death of his father (an amateur painter) he moved in 1867 with his mother (a drawing master) to Stratford on Avon to be near her sister's family. William is first mentioned in the local paper there in 1884. He married in 1895.

Views of Stratford by him were commissioned in 1907 from him and published in a popular booklet entitled 'Shakespeare's Stratford-on-Avon' by J. Salmon, Art Printer, Sevenoaks. He exhibited nine paintings at the Royal Society of Birmingham Artists, between 1894 and 1907. He also exhibited annually at the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre in Stratford until 1926. Frances Countess of Warwick in 1911 commissioned 24 views of Warwick Castle from him. People remembered that he had a bicycle adapted to carry his paintbox, easel and stool.

Object of the Month
In 1939, Inge Sadan arrived in England with the Kindertransport to join her brother and sister who were already living in Coventry. The children could bring very few belongings with them and she carried this rucksack with her.

The Kindertransport was a rescue effort which brought Jewish children to Great Britain from Nazi Germany and other German occupied territories. Jews were suffering increasing incidents of violence and persecution under the Nazis and between 1938 and 1940, the Kindertransport helped approximately 10,000 children escape into Britain. The Movement for the Care of Children from Germany coordinated the British effort with the help of many organisations and individuals of different faiths.

Parents and guardians were not allowed to travel to Britain, so the children arrived alone and not knowing where or with whom they would be staying. Most children stayed with foster families while others stayed in hostels or on farms. After the war, many children discovered they were orphans because their parents had not survived the Holocaust. Inge and her siblings were exceptionally fortunate to be reunited with their parents.

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