Wallace Collection Online - The Collection

Results: 68

Studio of Bernardo Daddi (+1350)
The Nativity
c.1340-80
P549
Bookmarkable URLMary lays the infant Christ, wrapped in swaddling clothes, in the manger of a stable ‘because there was no room for them in the Inn’. The ox and ass, and groups of rejoicing angels adore the child. The picture closely follows the account of the Nativity found in Saint Luke’s Gospel (II, 6-7). The picture is a fragment from the left wing of a triptych, and carries on the verso the crudely painted truncated figure of a martyred saint in a light brown habit with a palm. It follows a Daddi workshop formula, which exists in various versions, including the left wing of a triptych in the National Gallery of Scotland and a predella panel in the Uffizi, Florence.

Attributed to Francesco di Vannuccio (active between: 1356 - 1389)
The Virgin and Child in Majesty with Saints Peter and John the Baptist
Italy
c. 1370
P550
Bookmarkable URLThe Virgin is shown as the Queen of Heaven, seated on an elaborate gothic throne and surrounded by seraphim. The architectural nature of her throne symbolises the power of the Church. The key and the book of the doorkeeper of heaven identify Saint Peter while Saint John the Baptist is depicted in animal skins and in an attitude recalling his preaching in the desert. The richly tooled gold ground and the spatial inconsistency in the positioning of the figures are typical features of Francesco’s work found also in his Annunciation (Cambridge, Girton College). The figure of Saint John the Baptist seen here is close to that of the same saint in a picture by Vannuccio, dateable c.1370 (Siena, Pinacoteca Nazionale) and the Wallace Collection’s picture may date from about the same period.

Visored bascinet
Unknown Artist / Maker
Milan, Italy
c. 1390 - c. 1410
A69
Bookmarkable URLThis superb example of the armourer’s art is both beautiful and practical, designed as it is to deflect attack from virtually every direction. It was thus not the weight of metal that protected the wearer (this type of helmet is actually quite light), but its scientific design. Although Milan does seem to have been a major European producer of such helmets, it is now thought that other centres were producing very similar forms of armour, not just in Italy but elsewhere in Europe too. Besides its great rarity, this helmet is also prized as being one of the world’s most romantic and evocative helmets, since it belongs squarely within the era of the Hundred Years War in Europe. For example, helmets of this type almost certainly saw action at the Battle of Agincourt in 1415.

Helm
Unknown Artist / Maker
England or Flanders
c. 1410- c. 1450
A186
Bookmarkable URLSkilfully wrought in only two pieces, this helm demonstrates considerable craftsmanship on the part of its unknown maker. Helms of this general type have sometimes been found in English churches, used as funerary trophies; it is likely that this one, formerly in the collection of Sir Samuel Rush Meyrick, also came from an English church, in which case it might even have been made in England. There is some evidence however that much ‘English’ armour was being made in Flanders at this time. Made of steel rather than iron, it is likely to have been an expensive and prestigious piece. Helms of this form were never worn in battle, but were only employed in the tournament, where their great weight was less of a hindrance.

The Wallace Collection