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Dr Godfrey Evans is Principal Curator of European Decorative Arts.
Godfrey Evans has an MA in Art History from the Courtauld Institute of Art, London, and a PhD in Art History from Edinburgh University. He is responsible for the collections of English and European precious and base metalwork, sculpture, ceramics and glass, enamels, and arms and armour from 1200 to 1850. Among the treasures in his section are the Lennoxlove toilet service, Napoleon tea service, and many other items from the outstanding collection of the Dukes of Hamilton, the premier peers of Scotland.
Godfrey’s main research interests are the Dukes of Hamilton and the Hamilton Palace collection, which was largely dispersed in two great series of sales in 1882-84 and 1919-20. He is currently working on a major, eighteen-chapter book on Hamilton Palace and the Dukes of Hamilton from 1600 to the present day, which will be published by National Museums Scotland.
Godfrey is a director of the Virtual Hamilton Palace Trust and an advisor to the National Trust for Scotland and to Government departments and organisations, including DEFRA. He has supervised PhD students at Glasgow University, including two Arts and Humanities Research Council Collaborative Doctoral Award PhDs on ‘The Western Ceramics in the Hamilton Palace Collection’ and ‘The Dispersal of the Hamilton Palace Collection, 1880-2010’.
Catherine the Great: An Enlightened Empress. Edinburgh: National Museum of Scotland, 2012.
Nicholas and Alexandra: The Last Tsar and Tsarina. Edinburgh: National Museum of Scotland, 2005.
Souvenirs from Roman Times to the Present Day. Edinburgh: NMS Publishing Ltd, 1999.
French Connections: Scotland and the Arts of France. Edinburgh: HMSO, 1985.
The 10th Duke of Hamilton and William Allan in Russia and the Ukraine, Journal of the Scottish Society for Art History, 19, 2014-2015, 15-25.
French Empire Silver versus English Regency Silver, art antiques london catalogue, London, 2014, pp. 86-97, and The International Fine Art & Antiques Show Catalogue, New York, 2014, 18-27.
The 10th Duke of Hamilton’s Commissions to French Founders and Sculptors, Journal of the Scottish Society for Art History, 18, 2013-2014, 15-27.
In the Shadow of Jacques-Louis David’s Napoleon: The 10th Duke of Hamilton and Raeburn. In Henry Raeburn: Context, Reception and Reputation, ed. V. Coltman and S. Lloyd, Edinburgh University Press, 2012, 122-52.
Clarifying the View: The Visual Record of the Grangemouth Terracotta Works in the 1850s. Northern Ceramic Society Journal, 25, 2011, 106-12.
The 11th Duke and Duchess of Hamilton and France. Journal of the Scottish Society for Art History, 14, 2009-2010, 7-17.
The Restoration and Enlargement of Hamilton Palace by the 10th Duke of Hamilton, 1806-32. Review of Scottish Culture, 21, 2009, 35-66.
The Grangemouth Coal Company and the Rise and Fall of the ‘Grangemouth Terracotta Works’. Northern Ceramic Society Journal, 25, 2008-9, 93-116
(With Ulrike Al Khamis). Faint Echoes of Past Splendour: A Group of Brass Plaques from 19th-century Qajar Iran. In R. Hillenbrand (ed.) Shahnama: The Visual Language of the Persian Book of Kings. Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing Ltd, 2004, 129-41.
The Hamilton Collection and the 10th Duke of Hamilton. Journal of the Scottish Society for Art History, 8, 2003, 53-72.
The Acquisition of Stuart Silver and Other Relics by the Dukes of Hamilton. In E. Corp (ed.), The Stuart Court in Rome: The Legacy of Exile. Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing Ltd, 2003, 131-48.
The Formation of the Glass Collections of the National Museums of Scotland. In D.C. Watts (ed.), Glass Collectors and their Collections in Museums in Great Britain. London: The Glass Circle, 1999, 17-24.
For further publications see the National Museums Scotland Research Repository.
