A Tudor Heart, a gold pendant from the time of King Henry VIII, was discovered by a collector in a dried-up pond in central England. Now, the British Museum has raised the necessary funds to acquire the piece and exhibit it in the museum.
The 24-carat gold “Tudor Heart” was discovered in December 2019 by a collector in central England while searching a dried-up pond. The café owner from Birmingham had only acquired a metal detector six months prior to search the area for valuable items.
Under British law, anyone who finds an object that could be classified as a national treasure is required to report it to the authorities. Following this report, the British Museum in London took care of evaluating the pendant.
And the museum received a preemptive right to acquire the valuable object. In October, it launched a fundraising appeal for this purpose.
It has now reportedly received £380,000 (approximately 400,000 Swiss francs) in donations from 45,000 people, representing around ten percent of the purchase price of £3.5 million (approximately 3.66 million Swiss francs).
Inscription in Old French
This refined piece of jewelry is decorated with enameled motifs. It hangs on a golden chain with 75 links, fastened by a clasp in the shape of a hand emerging from a cloud – a common iconography at the time to symbolize the hand of God. Every element of the jewelry was made from the purest gold.
The pendant is a treasure in more than one respect: firstly, because it is decorated with precious stones. But likewise, because it is a remarkable example of 16th-century craftsmanship, as the museum highlighted in a statement. It is also the only piece of jewelry of its kind from the time of Henry VIII’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon.
It depicts the white and red Tudor rose, the heraldic floral emblem of this dynasty, accompanied by a half pomegranate, the symbol of the city of Granada, which was reconquered by Catherine’s parents, Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile.
Below, a banner bears the inscription “tous iors,” which means “always” in Old French. The reverse is decorated with the initials “H” and “K,” connected by a cord with tassels.
The Tudor Heart on Tour
“Research by the British Museum has revealed that the ‘Tudor Heart’ pendant was made to celebrate the betrothal of their two-year-old daughter, Princess Mary, to the eight-month-old French heir apparent in 1518,” the institution said in a statement. The marriage between the two never took place. Mary was crowned the first Queen of England in her own right in 1553.
RTS news on the subject (with German subtitles):
“The success of the campaign shows the power of history to spark the imagination and explains why objects like the Tudor Heart should be in a museum,” said British Museum director Nicholas Cullinan, according to the statement.
The valuable object is to be exhibited in the museum’s permanent collection. A national tour is being prepared so that “all residents of the United Kingdom have the opportunity to notice and admire the Tudor Heart.”
