The Cultural Biography of Museum Objects and the Contingency of Knowledge Production

This article examines how perceptions of authenticity and value of the Japanese ceramic collection of William C. Van Horne (1843–1915), assembled in Montreal, Canada, shifted in different contexts over time, from a private collection, to an inherited property, and then a public collection in two museums. By closely tracing the history of this collection with a focus on one tea bowl made by the renowned Japanese potter Nonomura Ninsei, it investigates how various individuals and institutional operations were involved as agents for the meaning-formation of the collected objects – processes that embodied the highly contingent nature of cultural knowledge production.