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The man who saved the Cheapside Hoard
While I was in Tucson, I managed to sneak in a few extra seminars at the AGTA GemFair for fun, and one of them was a presentation about the Cheapside Hoard, which I think is fascinating.
Robert Weldon of the Gemological Institute of America was given the rare opportunity to see the collection in person last summer and take some photographs and videos, which he shared with the crowd at the seminar.
During the summer of 1912, a worker’s pickaxe broke through the floor of a tenement house on Cheapside, a district in London. Under the floor there was a container holding a buried treasure—almost 500 pieces of mostly Elizabethan and Jacobean jewelry.
We now know that the hoard was buried between 1640 and 1666.
It’s said that many of the workers quickly took the pieces and that most would’ve been lost for good if it hadn’t been for what one man did.
Antiquities trader and pawnbroker George Fabian Lawrence had a deal with many of the workers where he would offer them cash or other remuneration for interesting finds during their work. Parcels of the Cheapside Hoard began showing up at his office and he eventually amassed quite a collection.
Most of the collection now resides permanently at the Museum of London. The museum is running an exhibition called “The Cheapside Hoard: London's Lost Jewels,” which displays the hoard in its entirety for the first time in more than 100 years. It runs until April 27.
Check out the photos below (courtesy of the Museum of London) to see a few of my favorite pieces in the Cheapside Hoard.
This is a scent bottle, or pomander, from the Cheapside Hoard. This gold bottle with white enamel is set with milky chalcedony carvings of leaves, rubies, pink sapphires, spinels, and diamonds.
Far and away my favorite piece of all, and probably most people’s, that I saw in photos is this pocket watch, made entirely of Colombian emerald, circa 1600. The maker removed a piece for the cover and then cut out a section for the movement.
This enameled gold salamander hat ornament is made with cabochon emeralds from Colombia, and the tail features table-cut diamonds.
This gold bow pendant is set with rose-cut and step-cut foil-backed rubies and table-cut diamonds.
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