page_title: Waddesdon Bequest
section_title: Jewellery
hierarchical_section_title: Waddesdon Bequest / Jewellery
caption_attribution_description: English: Waddesdon Bequest, British Museum
context_page_description: In 1898, Baron Ferdinand Rothschild bequeathed to the British Museum as the Waddesdon Bequest the contents from his New Smoking Room at Waddesdon Manor. This consisted of a wide-ranging collection of almost 300 objets d'art et de vertu which included exquisite examples of jewellery, plate, enamel, carvings, glass and maiolica. Earlier than most objects is the outstanding Holy Thorn Reliquary, probably created in the 1390s in Paris for John, Duke of Berry. The collection is in the tradition of a schatzkammer, or treasure house, such as those formed by the Renaissance princes of Europe; indeed, the majority of the objects are from late Renaissance Europe, although there are several important medieval pieces, and outliers from classical antiquity and medieval Syria.
  Following the sequence of the museum's catalogue numbers, and giving the first number for each category, the bequest consists of: "bronzes", handles and a knocker; arms, armour and ironwork; enamels; glass; Italian maiolica; "cups etc in gold and hard stone"; silver plate; jewellery; cutlery; "caskets, etc"; carvings in wood and stone.
context_section_description: The emphasis of the jewellery is very firmly on spectacular badges and pendant jewels of the late Renaissance in what is known as the "Spanish Style" that was adopted throughout Europe between about 1550 and 1630, using gems together with gold and enamel to create dazzling tiny sculptures.  These were originally worn by both men and women, but as a collection the Waddesdon group was chosen for display (and in a specifically male setting) rather than for wearing, except at the occasional fancy-dress ball, a fashion at the time.  The group demonstrate little interest in gemstones and pearls for their own sake. Although such pieces have survived more often than styles emphasizing gem stones and massy gold, which were typically recycled for their materials when fashion changed, the demand from 19th-century collectors greatly exceeded the supply of authentic survivals, and many pieces include much work from that period (see below).
  For many of the pieces though it is not easy to place the date or country of manufacture.  There is no such difficulty with the most famous jewel in the collection, the Lyte Jewel, which was made in London and presented to Thomas Lyte of Lytes Cary, Somerset in 1610 by King James I of England, who loved large jewels, and giving them to others. Lyte was not a regular at court, but he had drawn up a family tree tracing James's descent back to the legendary Trojan, Brut. The jewel contains a miniature portrait of the king by Nicholas Hilliard, though for conservation reasons this is now removed from the jewel. Lyte wears the jewel in a portrait of 1611, showing a drop below the main oval set with three diamonds, which had gone before 1882.  The front cover has an elaborate openwork design with James's monogram IR, while the back has very finely executed enamel decoration.
  One pendant, shaped like a lantern with a tiny Crucifixion inside, was made in 16th-century Mexico, and from comparison with other pieces may originally have included Mexican feather work, a Pre-Columbian art whose craftspeople the Spanish missionaries employed in workshops for export luxury objects.
caption: Pendant with mounted hippocamp, probably Paris, early 19th century, WB.156
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