Photographs entered into Britain Loves Wikipedia

St Gregory and St Ambrose, V&A
Photograph by art_traveller.
Taken at the Victoria and Albert Museum.

St Gregory and St Ambrose
About 1320-50
Italy, Verona
Painted limestone

These figures are from the Abbey of SS. Nazaro e Celso in Verona. In the fourteenth century, this abbey was run by the Knights Hospitaller. They probably represent two of the four Fathers of the Church - Saints Ambrose and Gregory. There would originally have been two other figures. It is not certain how they were originally intended to be displayed. Although they may have been intended for a church facade, the figures are unweathered, suggesting that they have spent most of their lives indoors.

St Gregory: A.34-1913, http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O16254/figure-saint-gregory-the-great-possibly/
St Ambrose: A.33-1913, http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O17200/figure-saint-ambrose-possibly/

Collection ID: A.34-1913

St Sebastian, V&A
Photograph by art_traveller.
Taken at the Victoria and Albert Museum.

St Sebastian
1497
Designed by Hans Holbein the Elder (about 1465-1524)
Germany, Augsburg
Partially gilded silver, set with glass, pearls, sapphires and rubies
Museum no. M.27-2001

This powerfully expressive figural reliquary of St Sebastian is one of the most important works of art bought by the Museum in recent years.Of superb artistic quality, it is a rare and powerful example of European goldsmith's work from the great age of Albrecht Dürer and Hans Holbein. Reliquaries usually contain fragments of saints' bones or objects associated with saints. The base of this reliquary, elaborately decorated with pinnacles and figures in the Gothic style, contains relics associated with St Sebastian visible through a window on one side. Recent examination has revealed fragments of wood, possibly believed to be shards of the arrows that fatally pierced the saint, all wrapped in silk.

St Sebastian was believed to protect people from the plague, and according to the inscription on the base, the reliquary was a votive offering commissioned from the monastery during an epidemic.The cult of relics was central to medieval Christian worship. The formal display of relics on major feast days was an important ritual of the Catholic church. Contemplation of them was thought to reduce time spent in purgatory after death and many saints were thought to be responsive to prayer against specific illnesses.

Sebastian was one of the most popular saints in the late Middle Ages. He lived reputedly in 3rd-century Rome, an officer in the Roman Praetorian guard at the time of the Emperor Diocletian. He was condemned to death for his Christian beliefs and shot with arrows. He is depicted here pierced with arrows (some lost) and lashed to the boughs of a tree. None of the arrows entered his vital organs and he survived the ordeal. He confronted the emperor with a renewed avowal of his faith and was this time clubbed to death. His body was thrown into a sewer in Rome.

This reliquary was one of a number of costly items commissioned by Georg Kastner, abbot of Kaisheim Monastery near Augsburg in south Germany between 1490 and 1509. Kaisheim was a Cistercian monastery founded in 1134 and dedicated to the Virgin Mary. Kastner 'enriched his abbey both inside and out'. Among his other commissions were a companion reliquary of St Christopher, a large monstrance and a precious white chasuble (robe). The reliquary of St Sebastian is inscribed with the date 1497 and with the names of Kastner, Duke Frederick III of Saxony, who partly paid for the commissions, and the Emperor Maximilian.

The British Museum owns a design for this reliquary, believed to be by Hans Holbein the Elder (around 1460/5-1534). Holbein bought a house in Augsburg in 1493 and painted an altarpiece for Kaisheim Monastery in 1502, again commissioned by Kastner. Like many painters of the day, such as Dürer, Schongauer and Cellini, he initially trained as a goldsmith.Holbein's design differs from the silver reliquary in having an oval base.

The name of the goldsmith who made the reliquary is not known. However, the wonderful modelling of the saint's hair and arms confirm that he was clearly a master craftsman . He was probably trained in Augsburg, which was one of the major centres of goldsmithing expertise in 15th-century Europe.

The reliquary is presumed to have first come onto the art market when Kaisheim Monastery was secularised in 1802-3. Its first known owner was the Russian Prince Petr Soltykoff, renowned for his wealth and discerning taste for medieval art. The private collector Sir Julius Wernher acquired the reliquary, probably between 1880 and 1890, to add to his own outstanding art. The reliquary joined the Museum's collections in 2001.

Purchased with the assistance of the National Heritage Memorial Fund and The Art Fund.

Collection ID: M.27-2001

Two warriors shooting at the sun, V&A
Photograph by art_traveller.
Taken at the Victoria and Albert Museum.

Two warriors shooting at the sun
About 1531-2
Benedetto Cervi, also called Pavese (active 1500-32)
Italy, Milan
Marble

This is one of three reliefs which might have formed part of a monument intended for King Francis I of France. The original commission went to Bambaia, who was an established master, but he sub-contracted the work to Benedetto Cervi, a former assistant. Cervi was known for his skill in carving reliefs in the classical manner, with some parts entirely in the round

Here a young and an older warrior are engaged in an archery contest, apparently shooting at the sun. The relief is inscribed in Latin, ‘Unharmed by sunlight. 1518’ - sunlight refers to Apollo, the god of archery, the sun and sunlight the significance of the date has yet to be discovered.

The relief was brought to Paris from Milan together with the other two (7257-1860 and 7260-1860) in the 18th century, where it was kept in the Collection of Alexandre Lenoir, Founder of the Musee des Monuments Francais. A drawing of them was sent to Cicognara before 1816, who also reported that they had only recently been brought from Milan to Paris. They seem to have returned to Italy for a few years in the first half of the 19th century, when a dealer brings them from Italy to London. Robinson notes the following about the purchase of this relief: "The first piece (the relievo, No. 400) was purchased in 1854, […], from a dealer who had brought it from Italy."

Collection ID: 400:&1-1854

Reliquary bust
Photograph by art_traveller.
Taken at the Victoria and Albert Museum.

Reliquary bust
About 1505-10
Italy, Brescia
Copper

This reliquary forms the head and shoulders of St Antigius, legendary bishop of Brescia, and would have held his relics inside, as the inscription makes clear. The inscription shows that the bust was commissioned by the monastery of San Faustino e San Giovito, in Brescia, northern Italy where the bones of St Antigius were described in 1658 as "divided, but honorably being preserved enshrined".

The bones associated with the saints and the possessions associated with Christ are known as relics. In the Middle Ages they were generally believed to have miraculous powers and were greatly venerated. Relics were kept in precious metal containers called reliquaries, and safe-guarded in church treasuries. Relics attracted pilgrims who made gifts and monetary donations to the Church in which they were held. Local people also gave in honour of their saint and to gain protection and healing for themselves and their town.

Collection ID: M.52-1967

Nereid riding an Ichthyocentaur
Photograph by art_traveller.
Taken at the Victoria and Albert Museum.

Nereid riding an Ichthyocentaur
About 1520
Follower of Andrea Briosco, called Riccio (1470-1532)
Italy, Padua
Bronze

This bronze exists in several differing versions. Technical evidence suggests that a piece-mould was made of the core of the original model from which other cores were cast. Riccio's usual method of modelling the wax over each core was then followed, allowing for replicas of the original bronze to be made.

Salting Bequest

Collection ID: A.91-1910

Model of a slave
Photograph by art_traveller.
Taken at the Victoria and Albert Museum.

Model of a slave
About 1516-19
Michelangelo Buonarroti (1473-1564)
Italy, Florence
Wax

The small wax figure is a sketch model for the unfinished marble of the Young Slave in the Accademia in Florence, designed for the 1516 scheme for the tomb of Pope Julius II, who died in 1513. This scheme was the third of six produced for the problematic project, which, when it was commissioned in 1505, was planned as a large free-standing structure with more than 40 life-size or larger statues, and was intended for St Peter's in Rome. The existing, greatly reduced tomb was finally erected in San Pietro in Vincoli, Rome, in 1545. This model differs from the unfinished marble in several details, suggesting that the artist refined the design at a later stage.

Michelangelo made a large number of drawings and models in wax, clay and terracotta in connection with both his painting and his sculpture. He destroyed many of his preparatory works, but the growing interest in the creative process and his extraordinary celebrity led several of his contemporaries to collect his drawings and models. One such collector was the painter and biographer Giorgio Vasari, a great admirer and friend of the artist. In his Life of Michelangelo he described what he claimed to be the sculptor's working method: a small model of wax or other firm material was immersed in water and gradually raised to reveal more of the figure as the carving of the marble progressed.

Collection ID: 4117-1854

Study of male nudes in combat, V&A
Photograph by art_traveller.
Taken at the Victoria and Albert Museum.

Study of male nudes in combat
Relief
Possibly 1470-1500
Italy
Terracotta

This panel relief is attributed to Antonio de Pollaiuolo, made in Florence in 1470-1500.

The Florentine painter Antonio Pollaiuolo’s interest in the male nude in active poses was shared by many Renaissance artists. Prints of his engravings were widely distributed across Italy and Northern Europe, and the figures appeared in other works of art. The terracotta relief recalls elements of Pollaiuolo’s engraving. It might reflect a bronze relief which Pollaiuolo was said to have made for export to Spain.

Collection ID: 7598:2-1861

Pluto and Proserpine
Photograph by Iza Bella.
Taken at the Victoria and Albert Museum.

Sculpture - Pluto and Proserpine
Signed and dated 1849
Edward James Physick (1829-1906)
London
Plaster
Shown at the Great Exhibition, 1851

In classical mythology Proserpine was the daughter of Ceres, the goddess of agriculture. Proserpine had been collecting flowers with her female companions when Pluto, the god of the underworld, seized her. Pluto – struck by Cupid’s arrow – carries Proserpine to the underworld where she become his wife.

Physick, active in the 19th century, won the Royal Academy Gold Medal in 1850 for a relief entitled The Rape of Proserpine,, probably this piece. He later also exhibited the same work at the Great Exhibition of 1851. The energetic composition recalls the work of Giambologna, in particular his Rape of the Sabines, in the Piazza della Signora, in Florence, a figure group Physick would have known.

Presented by Belinda Physick in memory of her father, David Physick

Collection ID: A.1-2005

One of a pair of spirit flasks
Photograph by Iza Bella.
Taken at the Victoria and Albert Museum.

One of a pair of spirit flasks
1720-30
Bohemia
Glass, enamelled
Decorated by Ignaz Preissler

Wilfred Buckley Collection

Collection ID: C.337-1936

One of a pair of spirit flasks
Photograph by Iza Bella.
Taken at the Victoria and Albert Museum.

One of a pair of spirit flasks
1720-30
Bohemia
Glass, enamelled
Decorated by Ignaz Preissler

Wilfred Buckley Collection

Collection ID: C.338-1936

Oliphant
Photograph by art_traveller.
Taken at the Victoria and Albert Museum.

Oliphant
1000-1100
Possibly Southern Italy, Amalfi or Salerno
Ivory with metal mounts

An oliphant is an ivory horn. This one is carved with a network of interconnected circles containing birds, antelopes, hares and other, more fantastic creatures. The style of decoration is derived from Islamic art, possibly textiles or ceramics produced in Cairo between the 10th and 12th centuries.

Collection ID: 7953-1862

Theseus and the Minotaur
Photograph by Iza Bella.
Taken at the Victoria and Albert Museum.

Sculpture - Theseus and the Minotaur
1782
Antonio Canova
Rome
Marble

The legendary Greek hero Theseus sits astride the minotaur whom he has just killed. Coils of thread used by Theseus to retrace his steps from the minotaur's lair can be seen by the minotaur's left leg. This was one of Canova's earliest completed works after he left Venice to settle in Rome, in 1781. The massive block of marble from which this group was carved was given to Canova by his patron Girolamo Zulian, who was Venetian ambassador in Rome. Zulian gave Canova the choice of subject for the work, and he decided on one of the stories from Ovid's Metamorphoses.

The Scottish painter, archaeologist and dealer, Gavin Hamilton (1723-1798), who was a friend of Canova, advised that he should portray Theseus and the Minotaur after their struggle. He considered that Canova would gain more favour and critical acclaim if he were to create a static group rather than a violent one. The sculpture did indeed receive widespread acclaim, and helped establish Canova's reputation as the leading European sculptor of his day. By the time Canova finished the work, his patron Zulian had moved to Constantinople, and he therefore gave the sculpture to Canova. Canova sold it to Graf Fries, and it was transported to Vienna. Later it was acquired by the 3rd Marquis of Londonderry and was installed in Londonderry House, probably during the 1820s. The contents of the house were sold in the 1960s prior to its demolition.

Purchased with the assistance of The Art Fund

Collection ID: A.5-1962