The desk is a product of the royal workshops and is lavishly embellished with ornamental motifs introduced to the Kingdom of England by continental artists. The gilded leather lining is painted with figures and profile heads that are close in style to contemporary portrait miniatures, while the figures of Mars in armour and Venus with cupid are taken from woodcuts by the German artist Hans Burgkmair (1473–1531), which were published in 1510. The desk also bears the coat of arms and personal badges of Henry and his first queen Catherine of Aragon. Such images conveyed powerful messages of allegiance and were used extensively in the decorative schemes of Henry VIII's royal palaces. The Latin inscription on the inner lid reads "God of Kingdoms great Protector of the authority of the Christian Church give to your servant Henry VIII King of England a great victory over his enemies".
The exterior of the desk is covered with shagreen (possibly sharkskin) and fitted with metal-gilt angle-mounts, loop handles and ball feet, all added during the 18th century. The interior surfaces of the compartments are lined with red silk velvet, probably added during the 19th century. The writing surface and the large compartment have been relined very crudely with a crimson silk velvet, the appearance of which is considerably older than that of the red velvet.
The Victoria and Albert Museum in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.8 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and named after Queen Victoria and Prince Albert.
The Albert Memorial, directly north of the Royal Albert Hall in Kensington Gardens, London, was commissioned by Queen Victoria in memory of her beloved husband Prince Albert, who died in 1861. Designed by Sir George Gilbert Scott in the Gothic Revival style, it takes the form of an ornate canopy or pavilion 176 feet (54 m) tall, in the style of a Gothic ciborium over the high altar of a church, sheltering a statue of the prince facing south. It took over ten years to complete, the £120,000 cost met by public subscription.
A desk or bureau is a piece of furniture with a flat table-style work surface used in a school, office, home or the like for academic, professional or domestic activities such as reading, writing, or using equipment such as a computer. Desks often have one or more drawers, compartments, or pigeonholes to store items such as office supplies and papers. Desks are usually made of wood or metal, although materials such as glass are sometimes seen.
St James's Palace is the most senior royal palace in London, the capital of the United Kingdom. The palace gives its name to the Court of St James's, which is the monarch's royal court, and is located in the City of Westminster in London. Although no longer the principal residence of the monarch, it is the ceremonial meeting place of the Accession Council, the office of the Marshal of the Diplomatic Corps, and the London residence of several members of the royal family.
Postage stamps and postal history of Great Britain surveys postal history from the United Kingdom and the postage stamps issued by that country and its various historical territories until the present day.
The Raphael Cartoons are seven large cartoons for tapestries, surviving from a set of ten cartoons, designed by the High Renaissance painter Raphael in 1515–16, commissioned by Pope Leo X for the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican Palace. The tapestries show scenes from the Gospels and Acts of the Apostles and are hung below the frescoes of the Life of Christ and the Life of Moses commissioned by Pope Sextus. The cartoons belong to the British Royal Collection but since 1865 are on loan to the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.
The Crown Jewels of the United Kingdom, originally the Crown Jewels of England, are a collection of royal ceremonial objects kept in the Jewel House at the Tower of London, which include the coronation regalia and vestments worn by British monarchs.
The Imperial State Crown is a state crown of the Crown Jewels of the United Kingdom. It has existed in various forms since the 15th century and the present version was created in 1937. The crown is adorned with 3,170 precious stones, including the Cullinan II diamond, St Edward's Sapphire, the Stuart Sapphire, and the Black Prince's Ruby.
Nonsuch Palace was a Tudor royal palace, commissioned by Henry VIII in Surrey, England, and on which work began in 1538. Its site lies in what is now Nonsuch Park on the boundary of the borough of Epsom and Ewell and the London Borough of Sutton.
The Resolute desk, also known as the Hayes desk, is a nineteenth-century partners desk used by several presidents of the United States in the White House as the Oval Office desk, including the five most recent presidents. The desk was a gift from Queen Victoria to President Rutherford B. Hayes in 1880 and was built from the oak timbers of the British Arctic exploration ship HMS Resolute. The 1,300-pound (590-kilogram) desk was created by William Evenden, a skilled joiner at Chatham Dockyard in Kent, probably from a design by Morant, Boyd, & Blanford. The desk has been modified twice, with a kneehole panel added in 1945 and a 2-inch-tall (5.1 cm) plinth added to the desk in 1961.
The coat of arms of Scotland, colloquially called the Lion Rampant, is the coat of arms historically used as arms of dominion by the monarchs of the Kingdom of Scotland, and later used within the coat of arms of Great Britain and the present coat of arms of the United Kingdom. The arms consist of a red lion surrounded by a red double border decorated with fleurs-de-lis, all on a gold background. The blazon, or heraldic description, is: Or a lion rampant Gules armed and langued Azure within a double tressure flory-counter-flory of the second.
Levina Teerlinc was a Flemish Renaissance miniaturist who served as a painter to the English court of Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary I and Elizabeth I. She was the most important miniaturist at the English court between Hans Holbein the Younger and Nicholas Hilliard. Her father, Simon Bening, was a renowned book illuminator and miniature painter of the Ghent-Bruges school and probably trained her as a manuscript painter. She may have worked in her father's workshop before her marriage.
Opus Anglicanum or English work is fine needlework of Medieval England done for ecclesiastical or secular use on clothing, hangings or other textiles, often using gold and silver threads on rich velvet or linen grounds. Such English embroidery was in great demand across Europe, particularly from the late 12th to mid-14th centuries and was a luxury product often used for diplomatic gifts.
In needlework, a slip is a design representing a cutting or specimen of a plant, usually with flowers or fruit and leaves on a stem. Most often, slip refers to a plant design stitched in canvaswork (pettipoint), cut out, and applied to a woven background fabric. By extension, slip may also mean any embroidered or canvaswork motif, floral or not, mounted to fabric in this way.
English embroidery includes embroidery worked in England or by English people abroad from Anglo-Saxon times to the present day. The oldest surviving English embroideries include items from the early 10th century preserved in Durham Cathedral and the 11th century Bayeux Tapestry, if it was worked in England. The professional workshops of Medieval England created rich embroidery in metal thread and silk for ecclesiastical and secular uses. This style was called Opus Anglicanum or "English work", and was famous throughout Europe.
St George's Chapel at Windsor Castle in England is a castle chapel built in the late-medieval Perpendicular Gothic style. It is a Royal Peculiar, and the Chapel of the Order of the Garter. St George's Chapel was founded in the 14th century by King Edward III and extensively enlarged in the late 15th century. It is located in the Lower Ward of the castle.
The Tudor Crown was a crown created in the early 16th century for either Henry VII or Henry VIII, the first Tudor monarchs of England, and destroyed in 1649 during the English Civil War. It was described by the art historian Sir Roy Strong as 'a masterpiece of early Tudor jeweller's art'.
The Story of Abraham is a set of ten Brussels tapestries depicting stories from the life of the biblical prophet Abraham. They appear to have been designed by Bernaert van Orley initially, but completed by Pieter Coecke van Aelst around 1537, both artists who were leading designers for the Brussels workshops. Three sets survive.
William Morris (1834-1898), a founder of the British Arts and Crafts movement, sought to restore the prestige and methods of hand-made crafts, including textiles, in opposition to the 19th century tendency toward factory-produced textiles. With this goal in mind, he created his own workshop and designed dozens of patterns for hand-produced woven and printed cloth, upholstery, and other textiles.
Bed hangings or bed curtains are fabric panels that surround a bed; they were used from medieval times through to the 19th century. Bed hangings provided privacy when the master or great bed was in a public room, such as the parlor. They also kept warmth in, and were a way of showing one's wealth. When bedrooms became more common in the mid-1700s, the use of bed hangings diminished.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
