There is nose to tail cooking and then, in my case, nose to concrete bashing. Not long ago, I tripped on my way into the Victoria&Albert Museum and I fell on my face, full force. Look no hands. This is one explanation for the gap in my posts. Fearing that the pavement would rise up and smash against me I nevertheless took my bruises and frog swollen mouth and nose to shows in London and, why stop there, in Florence and Amsterdam. At least the kind of art I go to see can't see whose looking. So this is my first catch up post. There's lots of time left to see them all.
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| Opal, ruby and opalescent quartz scent bottle |
The
Cheapside Hoard at the Museum of London. (read what I wrote in
The Economist published October 12 ). Here I will just say that this is the first time since the hoard was found in 1912 that all of is on view. There are 500 jewels, gems and luxury objects --among them a little enamelled gold watch set in a pretty big and very beautiful bluey green emerald.
This is the largest collection of Elizabethan and Jacobean jewellery anywhere and it is extremely well displayed. The story of the discovery and of the sometimes dodgy practices of goldsmiths in 16th and 17th centuries --ignoring the law among them-- is vividly told by curator Hazel Forsyth in
"London's Lost Jewels" which complements the show. (There should be but there is not a catalogue with images and descriptions of all the objects.) One of the prettiest pieces is the enamelled gold, opal and ruby scent bottle at the top. One of the most fascinating is the what remains of a watch made in Geneva probably between 1610 and 1620 signed by Gaultier Ferlite. The makers of all the other objects in the horde remain unknown.
Forsyth has dated to the burial of these treasures to sometimes after 1640 and before the Fire of London in 1666
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