DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.42068#0113
THE WILTON DIPTYCH
A picture, recently aoquired for the National Gallery at
a very high price, lias attracted wide-spread attention. I
refer to the diptych preserved for many years in thé Col-
lection of Lord Pembroke at Wilton House. It is generally
lmown as the Wilton Diptych. It has long been the desire
of ail lovers of art in Great Britain that this pictnre should
become the property of the nation. A painfnl dread aft’ect-
ed our nerves year after year lest we should wake np 011e
morning and lind that this precious and unique treasure
liad winged its flight across the Atlantic, probably never
to retnrn. Now it is safe.
For this diptych, apart from its beauty and its rarity, is
of greatest historical interest to Englishmen. It is, as I
shall show, the unique existing example of an English
mediaeval panel-pictnre of high quality, a solitary snrviver
from the puritanical and Philistine holocaust in which were
consnmed ail the paintings, most of the sculptures, almost
ail the Abbeys, and the libraries and objets d'art belonging
to their rich treasuries and those of the Cathedrals and
churches. But this single surviver is of further eminence
as an historical document of a rare quality in that it com-
mémorâtes the Coronation of one of the most interesting,
if also one of our most tragic sovereigns.
The photograph here reproduced will save me from the
A picture, recently aoquired for the National Gallery at
a very high price, lias attracted wide-spread attention. I
refer to the diptych preserved for many years in thé Col-
lection of Lord Pembroke at Wilton House. It is generally
lmown as the Wilton Diptych. It has long been the desire
of ail lovers of art in Great Britain that this pictnre should
become the property of the nation. A painfnl dread aft’ect-
ed our nerves year after year lest we should wake np 011e
morning and lind that this precious and unique treasure
liad winged its flight across the Atlantic, probably never
to retnrn. Now it is safe.
For this diptych, apart from its beauty and its rarity, is
of greatest historical interest to Englishmen. It is, as I
shall show, the unique existing example of an English
mediaeval panel-pictnre of high quality, a solitary snrviver
from the puritanical and Philistine holocaust in which were
consnmed ail the paintings, most of the sculptures, almost
ail the Abbeys, and the libraries and objets d'art belonging
to their rich treasuries and those of the Cathedrals and
churches. But this single surviver is of further eminence
as an historical document of a rare quality in that it com-
mémorâtes the Coronation of one of the most interesting,
if also one of our most tragic sovereigns.
The photograph here reproduced will save me from the