Exploring two landmark exhibitions.
This is an online event hosted on the British Library platform. Bookers will be sent a link in advance giving access and will be able to watch at any time for 48 hours after the start time.
Last year the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge staged the brilliant
Feast & Fast: The Art of Food in Europe (1500-1800), a multi-sensory exhibition showcasing multiple treasures and four spectacular historical reconstructions with food at their centre, including a Jacobean sugar banquet, a European feasting table and a Georgian confectioner’s workshop.
This year the Louvre-Lens is presenting
The Tables of Power: A History of Prestigious Meals, spanning 5,000 years of the culinary arts. Archaeological objects, paintings, sculptures, tableware, metalwork and fabulous objets d’art recount the history of the meal and rich exchanges between civilisations.
Earl of Leicester s 500-year-old £50 bronze ostrich sells for £1.8 million, surprising experts
The 500-year-old bird was only expected to fetch up to £120,000
The bronze ostrich sculpture sold at auction for £1,824,540 at Cheffins Fine Sale (Image: Cheffins/PA)
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A sculpture of an ostrich bought for £50 and eight shillings by the Earl of Leicester has surprised the experts by selling for more than 20 times the expected auction price.
A sculpture of an ostrich which once belonged to Horace Walpole in Twickenham has sold at auction for more than £1.8 million. The bronze bird was bought for 15 times its estimated value at the Cheffins Fine Sale in Cambridge on Thursday, 23 April. It went to a UK-based private buyer for £1,824,540, dwarfing the pre-sale estimate of £80,000 to £120,000, and setting a new house record for the auctioneers. The ostrich sculpture was at one point owned by Horace Walpole, son of former British prime minister Sir Robert Walpole, and held in his collection at Strawberry Hill House in Twickenham. It is believed to have been bought by Walpole between 1765 and 1766, having been created by Flemish sculptor Giambologna between the late 16th and early 17th century.
A sculpture of an ostrich which once belonged to Horace Walpole in Twickenham has sold at auction for more than £1.8 million. The bronze bird was bought for 15 times its estimated value at the Cheffins Fine Sale in Cambridge on Thursday, 23 April. It went to a UK-based private buyer for £1,824,540, dwarfing the pre-sale estimate of £80,000 to £120,000, and setting a new house record for the auctioneers. The ostrich sculpture was at one point owned by Horace Walpole, son of former British prime minister Sir Robert Walpole, and held in his collection at Strawberry Hill House in Twickenham. It is believed to have been bought by Walpole between 1765 and 1766, having been created by Flemish sculptor Giambologna between the late 16th and early 17th century.
Bronze ostrich sold at auction for £1.8 million
Sam Russell, PA
22 April 2021, 4:16 pm
A sculpture of an ostrich by Renaissance artist Giambologna has sold at auction for more than £1.8 million – 15 times its pre-sale estimate.
The bronze bird was sold to a UK-based private buyer in the room at the Cheffins Fine Sale in Cambridge on Thursday.
It went for £1,824,540, dwarfing the pre-sale estimate of £80,000 to £120,000 and setting a new house record for the auctioneers.
Giambologna (1529-1608) was a Flemish sculptor who worked in Italy.
The ostrich sculpture was at one point owned by Horace Walpole, son of former British prime minister Sir Robert Walpole, and held in his collection at Strawberry Hill House in Twickenham, south-west London.