The Wyvern Collection

This handsome catalogue explores a remarkable collection of medieval andRenaissance art in various media. It features stunning new photography and originalresearch, significantly broadening the scope of the existing scholarship on the subject.The Wyvern Collection stands out as one of the world’s pre-eminent collections inprivate hands. Scholarly catalogues of its rich array of holdings have been published inrecent years, but new, important additions continue to be made. This volume includesall the medieval and Renaissance works of art acquired since 2020.The recent acquisitions have built on the existing strengths of the collection, whileadding significant new pieces that cover a wide geographical, technical and stylisticrange. Among the highlights in this volume are a striking German twelfth-centuryaquamanile in the form of a stag, three early-thirteenth-century Limoges enamels,a rare fourteenth-century cameo of the Virgin and Child, a fine fourteenth-centuryFrench marble canopy from a tomb, and a previously unknown enamelled knop froma processional cross made by the esteemed Italian goldsmith and painter Nicola daGuardiagrele around 1410. Italian Renaissance ceramics are also well represented, withoutstanding examples by such celebrated sixteenth-century masters as Giorgio Andreolida Gubbio, the so-called Milan Marsyas Painter, Francesco Xanto Avelli and OrazioFontana da Urbino. The Wyvern Collection is especially strong in the painted enamelsof Renaissance Limoges, and three pieces have been added to this category, includinga magnificent ewer by Pierre Reymond. There are also sculptures in stone, wood andbronze, and a beautiful early sixteenth-century stained and painted glass roundel fromthe Northern Netherlands that perfectly complements the roundels already in theCollection.The beautiful new photographs commissioned specially for this volume bring tolight every detail of the pieces, making it possible to appreciate the technical refinementand exceptional craftsmanship of their medieval and Renaissance makers. Alongsidetheir visual and aesthetic quality, the new additions are important documents for thehistory of collecting, as attested by the prestigious provenance of several of the pieces – formerly in the Adda, Cottreau, Harris, Hunt and Rothschild collections among others.Paul Williamson, the author of this, as of the previous, volumes, is acknowledged to bean outstanding expert on medieval sculpture and decorative arts.