Waddesdon Manor to host Renaissance treasures exhibition

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-42501519

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Twelve "marvellous" Renaissance treasures are to be displayed together in Europe for the first time in 150 years.

The Aldobrandini Tazze, celebrating the 12 Caesars, notorious rulers of ancient Rome, will appear at Waddesdon Manor, Buckinghamshire, in 2018.

The set was broken up and scattered across the globe in the 19th Century.

No record exists to explain their origin but new research will be revealed at the display.

Each of the silver-gilt standing cups - or tazza - include a figure of one of the Caesars, standing more than 1ft (30cm) high, as well as four episodes from their life on the supporting dish.

'Brutal rulers'

The 48 vignettes on the European table ornaments bring to life the book, The Lives of the Twelve Caesars by Roman historian Suetonius, written in the early 2nd Century AD and tell the history of the first 12 Caesars - from Julius Caesar to Domitian.

Classicist Mary Beard said: "We owe it to the designers and craftsmen behind these marvellous objects, to those who commissioned them, to Suetonius himself, and even to the emperors — brutal rulers though they might have been in real life — to get these scenes sorted out, connect the right man with the right deeds, and see them all together as originally intended.

"And I think at last we have done just that."

It is not known exactly who the cups were made by or for - or when. But new research suggests they were made at the end of the 16th Century, probably in the Netherlands, and most likely for a member of the Habsburg dynasty - the ruling family of the Holy Roman Empire.

They have since been taken apart, incorrectly re-assembled, and dispersed across Europe and the Americas, many in private collections. Two are now in the UK - one at the Victoria and Albert Museum.

Waddesdon Manor was built at the end of the 19th Century by Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild and at least five of these dishes have been in Rothschild collections.

Today, only the Claudius cup remains in its entirely original state in a private collection.

The 12 have been brought together by curator Julia Siemon of The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York where they are currently on display.

The only European showing of this exhibition will be at the manor from 18 April - 22 July 2018.

Head of collections at Waddesdon Pippa Shirley said: "We are delighted to be working with the Metropolitan Museum on this extraordinary exhibition, which amongst other things illuminates an aspect of 19th Century collecting for which the Rothschilds were renowned."

Modern history of the Silver Caesars