“We would not be stood here if it were not for Joséphine Bowes,” said Vicky Sturrs, a curator, in a stupendously grand building that has one of the most enviable collections of art, ceramics and fashion to be found outside the UK’s capital cities. “I wouldn’t be employed in this job, this museum would not exist.”
The Bowes Museum has of course always known that the Frenchwoman Joséphine Bowes was an important part of its story, but the spotlight has more often been on her English landowner husband, John Bowes.
