NARRATOR: Your tour of these galleries began a portrait by an Italian’ craftsman; it was of a bishop who defended the Catholic Church. Similarly, this marble bust is also by an émigré Italian artist–a portrait of the author Mary Shelley.

WOLF BURCHARD: British art cannot be seen in isolation. What's so striking about this bust is that it's really acts as a bookend in combination with the Torrigiano bust of John Fisher.

NARRATOR: Mary Shelley was the author of the gothic novel, Frankenstein, about an "ungodly" creature born of modern technology. The story encapsulated a common, uneasy feeling: what was the modern world coming to? Today, new design and technology continue to give us pause: When the unthinkable becomes possible, what happens next?

If you peek around the corner to the threshold of this gallery, you’ll find a case along the right-hand wall: the final object on this audio tour. Inside, is a "grotesque" creature staring back at you: a jar in the shape of a bird. It blends the “gothic” with an Arts and Crafts ethos. It’s not a medieval gargoyle: it's a totally functional cookie jar. Ceramicist Kate Malone:

KATE MALONE: The character is just gorgeous. Is it funny, is it silly? No. Is he what, is, is he scary? I don't know. It's sort of on the edge, and the Martin Brothers were brilliant at that. So the wonderful Martin Brothers bird jar is obviously in two pieces, 'cause it's got a lid and a body. The core piece would have been modeled with soft clay and then cut out, probably hollowed, and then things like the eyes, and the beak, and the feathers pinched with their fingers, and smoothed with sponges, and their thumbs. There's joy in the making.

There's a sort of fine line between ugly, funny, satirical, I mean, the Martin Brothers bird looks as though he's, he's looking at the viewer and criticizing them.

WOLF BURCHARD: What I think this object illustrates is that decorative arts are primarily made for joy and entertainment. In these galleries, we've been looking at a variety of objects through a very serious lens, which of course is extremely important. But this bird's cheeky smile suggests that for all the complex—and at times traumatic—political and economic subjects that inform the works exhibited in these galleries, decorative arts are frequently designed simply to delight and entertain. And apart from being historically fascinating, beautiful, or sometimes practical, these objects can also be fun, quirky, and even a little eccentric.