The Waddesdon Bequest is a collection of nearly 300 precious art objects from Renaissance Europe. It was bequeathed to the British Museum by Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild, M.P., when he died in 1898. The Bequest is named after Waddesdon Manor, the mansion he built in Buckinghamshire, England, where the collection was housed during his lifetime. The collection was accumulated by Baron Ferdinand and by his father, Baron Anselm, and was intended to rival those put together by rulers and princes from the Renaissance onwards. It is mainly made up of small-scale, rare and precious pieces of the highest quality which were intended to inspire a sense of curiosity and wonder.

A sumptuously illustrated book presenting the highlights of Renaissance court treasures, bequeathed to the British Museum by Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild, MP in 1898.

Today we associate the Renaissance with painting, sculpture, and architecture—the “major” arts. Yet contemporaries often held the “minor” arts—gem-studded goldwork, richly embellished armor, splendid tapestries and embroideries, music, and ephemeral multi-media spectacles—in much higher esteem. Isabella d’Este, Marchesa of Mantua, was typical of the Italian nobility: she bequeathed to her children precious stone vases mounted in gold, engraved gems, ivories, and antique bronzes and marbles; her favorite ladies-in-waiting, by contrast, received mere paintings. Renaissance patrons and observers extolled finely wrought luxury artifacts for their exquisite craftsmanship and the symbolic capital of their components; paintings and sculptures in modest materials, although discussed by some literati, were of lesser consequence. This book endeavors to return to the mainstream material long marginalized as a result of historical and ideological biases of the intervening centuries. The author analyzes how luxury arts went from being lofty markers of ascendancy and discernment in the Renaissance to being dismissed as “decorative” or “minor” arts—extravagant trinkets of the rich unworthy of the status of Art. Then, by re-examining the objects themselves and their uses in their day, she shows how sumptuous creations constructed the world and taste of Renaissance women and men.