FZINE: a place for high school students and teachers to read, interact, and contrbute. LAUNCH
By Katrina Kuntz
One clumsy visitor is feeling more than embarrassed after he tripped on his shoelace in the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, England, in late January. Three priceless Qing dynasty vases set on a windowsill broke the man’s fall. Steve Baxter, another visitor who saw the accident, was quoted in the UK Daily Telegraph, saying: “We watched the man fall as if in slow motion. He landed in the middle of the vases and they splintered into a million pieces. He was still sitting there stunned when staff appeared. Everyone stood around in silence, as if in shock. Then the man started talking. He kept pointing to his shoelace and saying, ‘There it is, that’s the culprit.’” “They are in very, very small pieces but we are determined to put them back together,” said Margaret Greeves, the museum’s assistant director. The Chinese vases, dating from the late 17th or early 18th century, were donated to the museum in 1948 and had stood in their spot for over 40 years.
MARCH 2006