Horace Walpole & Strawberry Hill Exhibition Visit

Last weekend I visited the ‘Horace Walpole and Strawberry Hill’ exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum. The exhibition runs until July 4th 2010.

It is well worth a visit and among the items on display, there are these relating to the Tudors:

Bold = V&A information
Italics = Item catalogue entry by Horace Walpole

Hair of Mary Tudor
1533

A locket with hair of Mary Tudor, queen of France; whose tomb was opened in 1784.

View more details at the Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University

Clock & bracket
Clock about 1520 – 40 with later modifications; the weights probably 1533-6.

A clock of silver gilt…This was a present from Henry 8th to Anne Boleyn. On the weights are the initial letters of Henry and Anne within true lovers knots; at top Dieu et mon droit; at bottom. The most happy.’

View more details at the Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University

Anne Boleyn
Lucas Horenbout
About 1532-33

Catherine of Aragon,
First wife of Henry 8th by Holbein

View more details at the Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University

Katherine Howard
Hans Holbein, the Younger
1540-1

‘A lady painted by Holbein…probably Mary Tudor, queen of France, sister of Henry 8th.’

View more details at the Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University

The Family of Henry VIII
An Allegory of the Tudor Succession
Attributed to Lucas de Heere
1534-84. About 1572.

Probably a gift from Elizabeth I to Sir Francis Walsingham

A large picture of Henry 8th and this children.

View more details at the Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University

Lock
Attributed to Henry Romayne

One of only 3 known royal English locks of the period.

View more details at the Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University

Pattern for Shilling or Presentation Piece of Edward VI
1547-53

View more details at the Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University

Mary Nevill, Lady Dacre & Gregory Fiennes, 10th Baron Dacre
Hans Eworth

He believed it showed the Duchess of Suffolk, who had caused a scandal by marrying her Master of the Horse, sixteen years her junior, shortly after the execution of her first husband. In fact, it shows Lady Dacre and her son.

A fine and very valuable picture by Lucas de Heere, representing Frances duchess of Suffolk, mother of the Lady Jane Grey, and Adrian Stokes, her second husband.

View more details at the Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University

Henry VIII
The relief was hung in a frame.

The pose is taken from a lost fresco of 1537 painted by Holbein in Whitehall Palace.

View more details at the Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University

Elevation of the Hall and the Staircase West Wall
George Perfect Harding
About 1800

The painted wallpaper of the hall was copied from a print of the pierced screen of the tomb of Prince Arthur, Henry VIII’s elder brother, in Worcester Cathedral.

View more details at the Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University

Six portraits from the Court of Henry VIII
George Vertue after Hans Holbein
(1684-1756)

One is of Jane Seymour.

This and the following heads…were taken off an oil paper by Vertue from the origingal drawings of Holbein in queen Caroline’s closet at Kensington.

View more details at the Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University

Other interesting items included:

Three children of Christian II of Denmark
After Jan Gossaert (1478-1532)

Prince Arthur, Prince Henry & Princess Margaret, Children of Henry the seventh.

This identification was discontinued in the 1860s.

View more details at the Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University

Catherine de Medici and Her Children
Studio of Francois Clouet
1561

View more details at the Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University