The Ashmolean Museum in Oxford has received a bequest of almost 500 Renaissance and Baroque objects valued at £10m.
The rare gold and silver ornaments were left to the museum by collector Michael Wellby, member of a prominent London family in the silver trade, who died last year.
The works are primarily by German and Flemish makers and date from the 16th and 17th centuries. Many of the pieces incorporate intricate carvings of ivory, agate, lapis lazuli and rock crystal, as well as more exotic materials such as mother-of-pearl, coconut shell and ostrich egg.
Highlights from the collection include a silver gilt ewer dating from the early 1500s enamelled with the Royal Arms of Portugal, and a 1608 lapis lazuli bowl with gold mounts made by Dutch goldsmith Paulus van Vianen, which alone is valued at several million pounds.
Some of the objects go on temporary display this month in the Ashmolean’s West Meets East Gallery. The museum is planning to build a new permanent gallery to house the full display.
The Ashmolean’s keeper of the Department of Western Art, Tim Wilson, who befriended Wellby before his death, said: “This is the most important accession of objects of this sort to any UK museum since the bequest of objects from Waddesdon Manor by Ferdinand Rothschild to the British Museum in 1898.”
The Ashmolean has also received a grant of €25,000 (around £21,640) from The European Fine Art Foundation Maastricht’s museum restoration fund.
The grant will go towards a project to conserve two damaged 16th century candelabra by the Italian artist Giovanni Battista Piranesi.
The rare gold and silver ornaments were left to the museum by collector Michael Wellby, member of a prominent London family in the silver trade, who died last year.
The works are primarily by German and Flemish makers and date from the 16th and 17th centuries. Many of the pieces incorporate intricate carvings of ivory, agate, lapis lazuli and rock crystal, as well as more exotic materials such as mother-of-pearl, coconut shell and ostrich egg.
Highlights from the collection include a silver gilt ewer dating from the early 1500s enamelled with the Royal Arms of Portugal, and a 1608 lapis lazuli bowl with gold mounts made by Dutch goldsmith Paulus van Vianen, which alone is valued at several million pounds.
Some of the objects go on temporary display this month in the Ashmolean’s West Meets East Gallery. The museum is planning to build a new permanent gallery to house the full display.
The Ashmolean’s keeper of the Department of Western Art, Tim Wilson, who befriended Wellby before his death, said: “This is the most important accession of objects of this sort to any UK museum since the bequest of objects from Waddesdon Manor by Ferdinand Rothschild to the British Museum in 1898.”
The Ashmolean has also received a grant of €25,000 (around £21,640) from The European Fine Art Foundation Maastricht’s museum restoration fund.
The grant will go towards a project to conserve two damaged 16th century candelabra by the Italian artist Giovanni Battista Piranesi.
