The Cheapside Hoard : London’s lost jewels

Exquisite exhibition at the Museum of London showing the complete hoard of Stuart jewellery found in Cheapside in 1912 for the first time.

The exhibition put the work into context looking at what Cheapside was like in the period including a wonderful print of Edward VI’s Coronation passing along the street and showing the gold items in shop windows and people handing clothes from the windows like you see in Venice for the regatta. There were portraits from the Goldsmith’s company of leading jewellers of the time and a number of the old shop signs including the Black Boy.

It then showed the hoard in a lovely dark space, showing similar items together, almost like a shop window. All round the edge of the gallery were portraits showing how the piece would have been worn and examples of the clothing and accessories of the time.

I loved the case of pendants of small carved stones shaped like bunches of grapes. Each pendant had about eight stones falling from them and there were about 15 similar pieces. The emerald watch was breath-taking and I would never have guessed that green case was an emerald. I was interested to see that the hoard contained not only finished works but raw stones and ancient and contemporary cameos and carved stones waiting to be mounted in jewellery.

Finally the exhibition tried to answer the question of why the hoard was buried. Research has dated it to between 1640 and 1666 but it is still unclear who buried it and why, although the suspicion is that it burial was linked to the Civil War.

Reviews
Guardian
Evening Standard

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Sky Arts Portrait Artist of the Year Exhibition 2019

Image
Delightful exhibition at Clarendon Fine Art showing pictures from the Sky Arts Portrait Artist of the Year TV series. I had loved the series which had set nine artists, both professional and amateur, to paint one of three celebrities. It then had a semi-final and final with them all looking at one sitter and in the final they also took on a commission. I loved the way you watched a picture build and how some were then made or spoiled by one stroke of paint.   Finding these pictures I knew so well in the flesh was therefore fascinating. None of them disappointed. My favourite artist from the final, Tom Mead, works looked just as good in real life if not better as you could see the detail. The show included his impressive self-portrait which he submitted to enter the competition, a wonderful fragmented picture of his reflection in a mirror giving a sense of movement. I loved that it included a large version of him and a miniature. His commission for the final of Jazzie B was
Read more

Thomas Becket: Murder and Making of a Saint

Image
Stunning exhibition at the British Museum on the life and afterlife of Thomas Becket. I studied Becket both at A Level and at university so I was really looking forward to this show and it did not disappoint. From walking in to see an old friend, the early Limoges casket showing the murder from the Victoria and Albert Museum, I was gripped. The show told the story well using fantastic objects and led you through his life, the murder, the political aftermath, his sainthood and miracles, and how Canterbury became a major pilgrimage site. It is hard to pick out the best objects as so many were wonderful. I loved that they had early copies of some of the five eyewitness accounts of the murder which made you fell you were almost touching the event. I liked the manuscript on his time in exile which was almost like a comic strip. How wonderful to get a 13th century font from Sweden which shows how far and how quickly the news that Henry II had integrated the murder spread. I think my
Read more

Courtauld summer school day 1

Image
Today has been my first day of this year’s week at the Courtauld Institute’s summer schools. This year I am doing “Painting in Renaissance Venice” which is being led by Michael Douglas-Scott. It was nice to see some familiar faces and there are at least five of us who did Michael’s course last year. Today has been two lectures. Firstly setting out the background of Venice in this period looking at how the city had set up a myth of itself, the role of the Doge. the nature of the Republic and the role of citizens. The second lecture looked at why the nature of Renaissance was different in Venice. There was still a sense of the coming of antiquity and humanism but in Venice it fused with the Gothic and Byzantine rather than replacing it. The day ended with a choice of gallery talks. I went to one on the second floor of the Courtauld on the coming of Modernism. In essence it looked at the Impressionists and discussed what they were reacting against and what themes they portrayed. All in a
Read more