HERALDIC ART DISPLAY

Evening Star, Issue 22573, 15 February 1937, Page 14

HERALDIC ART DISPLAY

'EXHIBITION' »F GUTTER AND COLOUR The Birmingham Art Gallery, which has arranged many notable exhibitions, made a display of heraldic art at a recent exhibition, which was opened by Sir Gerald Woods Wollaston, Garter Principal King of Arms. The variety of exhibits was amazing; nothing like it has ever been seen out of London. ■ Perhaps the most notable feature .was the famous Westminster Rod, “ 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. in honour of Katharine ,of Aragon. Coming to modern times, the King and Queen Mary lent the Silver Jubilee tapestry. Queen Mary also lent several pieces of plate and a fine bibelot, which she discovered, a miniature wood-carr-ing of the arms of William 111. Tlie 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, sent by the Duke of Devonshire, The Duka of Beaufort sent his famous Somerset portrait; the Duke of St. Albans tha pedigree of Beauclair; the Duke of Portland his coronet, and a seal of Oliver Cromwell’s Parliament; and tha Duke of Bedford some remarkable pedigrees. Lord Spencer, from whom and Viscount Cobham Mr Kaines Smith, tha 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 ha carried on his campaigns. Then there were practically all tha great seals of the Kings of England, including both those of Richard 1., tha 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 n’rmorial china section wera shown part of a great dinner servica 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 algo 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 presented to the city in 1431. and baa never before left it, attracted much attention.