Two dozen out
ART ROY STRONG
The exhibition at Fishmongers Hall is a must for all those of you who pass sleepless nights speculating on the wilder excrescences of the iconography of the Trinity. No. 84 shows the three members of the Trinity, tiara-crowned each of them, popping a fourth triple diadem on the head of the Virgin jetting upwards in a mandorla, her mantle parted to reveal nude supplicants. This, believe it or not, is the chief feature of the document granting the Drapers' Company its coat of arms in 1439 and is one of the numerous oddities in the exhibition entitled a /00 Treasures from the City. Another oddity is the fact that the organisers can't count. I make the total number of exhibits 124 and I am still trying to work out why 100 treasures should be more enticing than 124, but perhaps I'm getting old and pernickety.
Being able to count is not the only boob in this exhibition in which knowledge and expertise seem to be so signally absent. Let me throw my weight around just on the few items about which I know something. Frederick, Prince of Wales, by Dandridge is not by Dandridge nor is it poor Fred (not like him, no Garter). The portrait of Henry VIII is certainly a later copy, probably eighteenth century, of the one at Hampton Court, so all the persiflage about whether it is painted by Bordone, Janet, Sotto van Itieve and the rest of them is neither here nor there. And the crowning piece of poppycock is the bust of a lady circa 1820 who is masquerad- ing as Nell Gwyn ascribed to Grinling Gib- bons (sic). One expects a few scholastic howlers in any exhibition but not quite on such an abysmal level.
These items rather shattered my faith in the rest of the show. In this sense it was a shame because the idea, which was the Lord Mayor's, is basically an excellent one. We have a city crammed with treasures which we never see as they are hidden away in company halls, churches and business premises. For all its bungling I do, therefore, recommend a visit as there are some lovely things, excellent for some brief ravishment of the eyes. The Jacobean gloves from the Glovers' Company, but recently restored, ought to give the King's Road food for thought. Gloves of buff leather, the wrists encircled with ruffles of carna- tion silk spangled with gold; huge gauntlets embroidered with pansies in coloured silks or pelicans in piety in gold thread, pink silk and seed pearls. The Goldsmith Company scores as always in its modern things, jewels of gold, amethyst, and baroque pearls which make the much-vaunted Cheapside Hoarde look like Hong Kong manufacture for the European market. And there are things of great historic nostalgia such as Dick Whittington, minus cat, on his deathbed, and a Shakespeare signature.
One hopes that these displays of city trea- sures will become a regular feature of city festivals. Any exhibition must have both time and thought lavished on it and all too little must have come the way of this project. One hopes that next year the city fathers will pursue a more definite exhibition policy...0d embark on some of the glorious shows w ch could so very easily be theirs.
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