Our host, Mary Anne Justice, curator (pictured), who worked with Ella Schaap for 40 years at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. She is responsible for the current display of Dutch tiles featured here in this newsletter.
A special thanks to Sally Malenka, Senior Objects Conservator at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, as well as to her colleague, Mary Anne Justice, curator, who worked together with Ella Schaap on the museum’s Dutch tile collections for 40 years. Mary Anne has continued to build the collection of Dutch ceramics and served as our host when Sheila Menzies and I visited the museum on May 13, 2024 to present the Tile Heritage Award to the museum’s Conservation Division and European Art Department in recognition of the late Ella Schaap.
From Joseph Taylor
It must have been on a weekend sometime in the early 1990s when I was introduced to the late Ella Schaap at her apartment outside of Philadelphia by my aunt, Charlotte Taylor, who lived nearby and who knew Ella as a friend and as a tile enthusiast of some renown. Charlotte, already a generous supporter of Tile Heritage, thought we’d enjoy each other’s company. We did.
In August 1996 when Sheila Menzies and I were planning our annual tile symposium, this one in Philadelphia for the fall of ‘98, I wrote to Ella at the Philadelphia Museum of Art where she had been a curator of ceramics for many years, a specialist in the history of Dutch tiles in particular, hoping to involve the museum in our plans. The two of us had kept in contact since we met as she had been a member of Tile Heritage for several years. She responded to my letter with her own, referring me with her blessings to the best people to contact.
The Philadelphia Museum of Art, housing one of America’s premier collections of ceramics, had been home to curator Edwin AtLee Barber, one of the country’s earliest tile scholars, who was responsible for amassing much of this collection in the early 20th century. The museum also safeguards an important collection of Dutch tiles, preserved through the pioneering efforts of the museum’s conservators, including Ella Schaap.
As a result, the museum became a sponsor of what amounted to an 8-day event (“Tiles: A Living History: Celebrating a Century of Ceramics in Southeastern Pennsylvania”), offering an entire day of lectures, tours, a luncheon, and free time as well for our group of 100+ attendees.