shewhomust | The Terrapin and the Metronome

The Emperor's Terrapin is on tour, and it has just reached Sunderland.

This is not a very good photo of the beast, carved from a single lump of jade nephrite: picture him a paler, milkier green, suspended in his glass box above a mirror, so that he seems to swim in the blaze of the spotlights. Last night

durham_rambler went as Gail-Nina's guests, accompanied by

desperance, to his welcome party, and since it was in Sunderland, we were joined by Mary and Bryan Talbot. And a good time was had by all.

The explanation of how the terrapin came to be wandering the country is a good one: it brings together the lavish splendour of the Moghul empire with the grasp and curiosity of the British Raj, and still retains a measure of mystery. It begins in 1803 at Allahabad in Northern India, where the Royal Engineers were working on a a water cistern, a large pool of water, in which they found a jade terrapin about the size of a footstool. The mystery is how it got there, but it seems plausible that it was carved for the Crown Prince Selim, who had established a royal residence at Allahabad. He was known for his curiosity about natural history, and his taste for jade, so the terrapin may have been carved at this time as an ornament for his gardens, in the likeness of the Three Striped Roof Turtles which live in the river Yamuna where it flows into the Ganges at Allahabad.

The engineers brought the terrapin to Lieutenant General Alexander Kyd, who liked it enough to bring it with him when he returned to England. It remained in his family until 1830, when it was bequeathed to the British Museum; they classified it as an interesting chunk of rock, rather than a fine carving, but they, too, liked it well to hang on to it when much of the Mineral Collection went to the new museums in South Kensington.

Perhaps it's this same unclassifiability which makes it an ideal object to send on tour around Britain now: a single item which is at the same time a gemstone of remarkable size, an accurate and decorative depiction of an exotic species, and a truly outstanding garden ornament. Sunderland display it in a gallery hung with Lowry paintings, with a display case of Persian rugs taking up one wall, and with a tank of live terrapins just outside the door, all of which is enterprising. But the terrapin swims on unperturbed in his own glass tank.

It seemed only right to go for a curry, and then back to Bryan and Mary's for coffee and more wine, and visual treats, too. There was Bryan's wonderful Alice in Sunderland to admire, now complete and scheduled for publication in February next year: we've seen the pages as work progressed, but now there is the entire book to coo over and marvel at.

Bryan showed us two other books. He had been given the giant Sunday Press Little Nemo collection, and it is quite stunning: the pages are reprinted at original size, and with minute attention to colour, and the effect is dazzling. Alongside this colourful classic he introduced us to a new work in monochrome: he told us how he had met French-Japanese concept artist Veronique Tanaka at Angoulême, and been impressed by her experimental graphic novel Metronome, and undertaken to publicise it. We discussed how the internet might be used to do this, so watch this space.