HERALDIC ART DISPLAY

Manawatu Times, Volume 62, Issue 28, 3 February 1937, Page 16 (Supplement)

HERALDIC ART DISPLAY

Exhibition of Glitter and Colour

The Birmingham Art Gallery, which has arranged many notable exhibitions, made a display of heraldic art at n recent exhibition, which was opened by Sir Gerald Woods Wollaston, Ga r ter Principal King of Arms. The variety of exhibits was amazing; nothing like it has ever been Been •nt of London. Perhaps the most notable feature was the famous Westminster Roll, “sixty feet of glitter and colour,'’ as it has been described, bristling with gay figures. This was done to celebrate the great tournament at Westminster, arranged by Henry VIII. jti honour of Katharine of Arragon. Coming to modern times, the King itnd Queen Mary lent the Silver Jubilee tapestry. Queen Mary also lent several pieces of ©late and a fine bibelot, which she discovered, a miniature woodcarving of the arms of William 111. The Duke of Buccleuch lent the Bellendaine banner, the last standard of the old type to be carried in war. The banner of Colonel Hopton, carried on King Charles’s behalf in the Civil War, was also on view. The Duke of Norfolk sent some interesting seals, and there was embroidery of the time of the immortal Bess of Hardwicke, by the Duke of Devonshire. The Duke of Beaufort sent his famous Somerset portrait; the Duke of St. Albans the pedigree of Beauclair; the Duke of Portland Ins coronet, and a seal of Ob

ver Cromwell’« Parliament; and fhe Duke of Bedford some remarkable podigrees. Lord Spencer, from whom and Viscount Cobham Mr. Kaines Smith, the Keeper of the Gallery, derived the inception of the idea of the exhibition, sent the Duke of Marlborough’s great silver bottle, two feet high, which he carried on his campaigns. Then there were practically all the great seals cf the Kings of England, including both those of Richard 1., the one bearing two lions combatant, and the other the three leopards of King Edward VIII. Some notable rolls of arms were seen, and the great Ely Tabula, a mighty record, painted on canvas, of the benefactors of Ely. In the armorial china section were shown part of a great dinner service given to Edmund Anson at Canton, while going round the world. His crew put in at Canton and extinguished a great fire that threatened the city. There was also the earliest piece of armorial oriental china known. This was lent by the Bristol Museum. Then there was the crystal mace from Norwich, said to be the most beautiful of its kind in England. All that is best of the Norwich regalia was seen. Bristol’s pearl sword, which was p/esented to the city in 1431, and has never before left it, attracted much atatention.