Wikipedia:Today's featured article/August 6, 2016
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The Waddesdon Bequest is a collection left to the British Museum in Baron Ferdinand Rothschild's will in 1898, taken from his New Smoking Room at Waddesdon Manor. It includes almost 300 pieces of jewellery, plate, enamel, carvings, glass and maiolica. Earlier than most objects is the Holy Thorn Reliquary, probably created in the 1390s in Paris for John, Duke of Berry. The wide-ranging collection is in the tradition of a treasure house, such as those owned by the Renaissance princes of Europe. Most of the objects are from late Renaissance Europe; there are several important medieval pieces, and outliers from classical antiquity and medieval Syria. Rothschild selected intricate, superbly executed, highly decorated and rather ostentatious works of the Late Gothic, Renaissance and Mannerist periods for this collection. Few of the objects relied on the Baroque sculptural movement for their effect, though several come from periods and places where many Baroque pieces were being made. A new display for the collection, which under the terms of the bequest must be kept and displayed together, opened in 2015. (Full article...)