A tiny 14th century enamel-on-gold traveller's devotional triptych :
- Mary Queen of Scots had it during her imprisonment in the Tower of London; she gave it to
- Elizabeth Vaux, wife of 4th Lord Vaux of Harrowden (gr-gr granddaugher of St Thomas More).
- Claudio Acquaviva, General of the Jesuits 1581-1616, who gave it as a coronation gift to:
- Pope Leo XI dei Medici (1605); it was returned upon the Pope's death to:
- Family of Fr Aquaviva, Dukes of Atri
- Maximilian I , Duke of Bavaria Wittelsbach (c.1616); Wittelsbach family owned it for more than three centuries, until they
- Sold it to a Munich art dealer (1933), who sold it to
- Fritz Mannheimer (died during WWII, wife Jane remarried Charles Wm Engelhard)
- During war, the triptych was stored in a London bank vault; Although the bank was bombed to smitthereens, the triptych remained intact;
- Looted from rubble by an English sailor who traded it it for drinks at an Irish pub
- Pubkeeper gave it to a convent, whence it passed to
- An unnamed local collector who traded it to a dealer for some chairs.
- The dealer showed it to Fr Martin D'Arcy, (Jesuit priest, Oxford) who knew it belonged to Mannheimer (he had bid against Mannheimer for it at auction when Mannheimer acquired it.)
- Returned to Jane Engelhard (c 1948); She gave it to D'Arcy, who was a noted collector.
- Put on public view to celebrate the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II (1953)
- Evidently now on permanent loan to Victoria and Albert Museum, London
I'd love to see the tryptych, but I've been unable to find a picture of it, not even on the V&A website or the D'Arcy Museum website. Any leads?
