Treasures of the Goldmith's Art

Matthew Winterbottom

ISBN 10: 191080701X / ISBN 13: 9781910807019

Published by Ashmolean Museum, GB, 2015

About this Item

The Wellby Bequest, received by the Ashmolean Museum in 2013, consists of some 500 precious and exotic objects, mainly from Continental Europe, from the late medieval to the rococo, and is the most remarkable accession of this kind of material to any museum in the UK since the bequest of Ferdinand de Rothschild to the British Museum in 1898 (the Waddesdon Bequest). The collection was assembled by three generations of the Wellby family with an intention that it should reflect the great princely treasure chambers (Kunstkammer) preserved in Dresden, Vienna, Innsbruck, and elsewhere. Many of these objects have never been previously published. This beautiful and accessible book introduces over sixty of the prime pieces from this astonishing addition to the Ashmolean, presenting material of the type incomparably superior to anything in other UK museums outside London. Both authors are specialists in European decorative arts of the Renaissance and later periods. Published to coincide with the opening of the new Wellby Bequest Gallery in the Ashmolean Museum September 2015Contents: Preface and Acknowledgements; Introduction to the Michael Wellby Bequest (by Timothy Wilson); Introductory essay on the Kunstkammer tradition (by Matthew Winterbottom); 50 catalogue entries on highlights of the Wellby Collection; Glossary, Bibliography; Index.

Seller Inventory # LU-9781910807019

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Treasures of the Goldmith's Art
• Publisher: Ashmolean Museum, GB
• Publication Date: 2015
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 191080701X
• ISBN 13: 9781910807019
• Binding: Paperback
• Condition: New
• Weight: 544 grams

About this title

Synopsis

The Wellby Bequest, received by the Ashmolean Museum in 2013, consists of some 500 precious and exotic objects, mainly from Continental Europe, from the late medieval to the rococo, and is the most remarkable accession of this kind of material to any museum in the UK since the bequest of Ferdinand de Rothschild to the British Museum in 1898 (the Waddesdon Bequest). The collection was assembled by three generations of the Wellby family with an intention that it should reflect the great princely treasure chambers (Kunstkammer) preserved in Dresden, Vienna, Innsbruck, and elsewhere. Many of these objects have never been previously published. This beautiful and accessible book introduces over sixty of the prime pieces from this astonishing addition to the Ashmolean, presenting material of the type incomparably superior to anything in other UK museums outside London. Both authors are specialists in European decorative arts of the Renaissance and later periods.

Published to coincide with the opening of the new Wellby Bequest Gallery in the Ashmolean Museum September 2015

Contents: Preface and Acknowledgements; Introduction to the Michael Wellby Bequest (by Timothy Wilson); Introductory essay on the Kunstkammer tradition (by Matthew Winterbottom); 50 catalogue entries on highlights of the Wellby Collection; Glossary, Bibliography; Index

About the Author

Timothy Wilson is Barrie and Deedee Wigmore Research Keeper in the Ashmolean Museums's Department of Western Art and Professor of the Arts of the Renaissance in the University of Oxford. He was Keeper of the Department of Western Art from 1990 to 2013. Matthew Winterbottom is Curator of Nineteenth-Century Decorative Arts at the Ashmolean Museum.