JOSÉPHINE AND JOHN BOWES
Standing proudly in the heart of Teesdale, The Bowes Museum is the vision of a pioneering woman, Joséphine Bowes and her husband John.
Mr Bowes, will lay the top stone.
Joséphine Coffin Chevallier was the daughter of a clockmaker and lived and worked in Paris. John Bowes was a businessman and the son of the 10th Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne, a distant ancestor to the late Queen Mother, Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon.
John Bowes moved to Paris in 1847 and bought the Théâtre Des Variétés in the Boulevard Montmartre, where he met Joséphine who was working as an actress under the stage name Mademoiselle Delorme. The couple had a shared interest in the arts and collecting, and later married in 1852.
Joséphine became one of the great salon holders in Paris and a patron of the arts, known for commissioning plays and collecting art works before they became popular.
She was also a gifted artist, studying under Austrian painter Karl Josef Kuwasseg. Her work was exhibited on four occasions in the late 1860s at the Académie des Beaux-Arts Salon in Paris and once at the Royal Academy in London – a defining achievement for a woman of the time. There are more than 55 works by Joséphine in the museum’s collection.
With Joséphine’s health rapidly declining, the couple decided to create a public museum in their legacy, to improve the lives of workers in County Durham. Joséphine was the leading force behind the project, and in 1862 she sold Chateau du Barry, with the proceeds put towards the museum.
Land was secured in Barnard Castle, a few miles from the Bowes’ ancestral home Streatlam Castle near Staindrop, and the couple commissioned architect Jules Pellechet to design the museum and grounds. Building work began in 1869 by JE Watson of Newcastle upon Tyne and English architect John Edward Watson oversaw this process, working with Pellechet’s designs.
The Bowes collected over 15,000 objects for the museum, including the Silver Swan, but sadly neither Joséphine nor John lived to see their museum open to the public in 1892.
Today, The Bowes Museum is a charity, managing a Grade I listed, accredited museum and 22 acres of Grade II listed parkland. As a forward-thinking museum of artists, designers and makers, and with a spirit of generosity and collaboration, its mission is centred around supporting and uplifting the North of England.
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