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Waddesdon Bequest
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In 1898, Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild bequeathed to the British Museum as the Waddesdon Bequest the contents from his New Smoking Room at Waddesdon Manor. This consisted of a wide-ranging collection of almost 300 objets d'art et de vertu, which included exquisite examples of jewellery, plate, enamel, carvings, glass and maiolica. One of the earlier objects is the outstanding Holy Thorn Reliquary, probably created in the 1390s in Paris for John, Duke of Berry. The collection is in the tradition of a schatzkammer, or treasure house, (and is referred to as such by some writers[1]) such as those formed by the Renaissance princes of Europe;[2] indeed, the majority of the objects are from late Renaissance Europe, although there are several important medieval pieces and outliers from classical antiquity and medieval Syria.[3]
The new 2015 display, with Renaissance metalware, most in silver-gilt, and maiolica
Display in 2014, mostly of Renaissance enamel, but including ancient handle mounts and the St Valerie chasse reliquary
Another display in Room 45, mostly of objects in iron or Limoges enamel
Following the sequence of the museum's catalogue numbers, and giving the first number for each category, the bequest consists of: "bronzes", handles and a knocker (WB.1); arms, armour and ironwork (WB.5); enamels (WB.19); glass (WB.53); Italian maiolica (WB.60); "cups etc in gold and hard stone" (WB.66); silver plate (WB.87); jewellery (WB.147); cutlery (WB.201); "caskets, etc" (WB.217); carvings in wood and stone (WB.231–265). There is no group for paintings, and WB.174, a portrait miniature on vellum in a wooden frame, is included with the jewellery, though this is because the subject is wearing a pendant in the collection.[4]
The collection was assembled for a particular place, and to reflect a particular aesthetic; other parts of Ferdinand Rothschild's collection contain objects in very different styles, and the Bequest should not be taken to reflect the totality of his taste. Here what most appealed to Ferdinand Rothschild were intricate, superbly executed, highly decorated and rather ostentatious works of the Late Gothic, Renaissance and Mannerist periods. Few of the objects could be said to rely on either simplicity or Baroque sculptural movement for their effect, though several come from periods and places where much Baroque work was being made.[5] A new display for the collection, which under the terms of the bequest must be kept and displayed together, opened on 11 June 2015.
HistoryEdit
The collection was started by Baron Ferdinand's father, Baron Anselm von Rothschild (1803–1874), and may include some objects from earlier Rothschild collections. For Mayer Amschel Rothschild (1744–1812) of Frankfurt, who began the prominence of the family, his business dealing in coins, "antiques, medals, and objects of display" preceded and financed his banking operations, and most Rothschilds continued to collect art.[6]
Self-portrait with her family by Charlotte Nathan Rothschild, Baron Ferdinand's mother, 1838. Part of Baron Anselm's collection can be seen behind her.[7]
At least one of the objects now in the British Museum can be seen in a cabinet in the background of a family portrait from 1838 (left), the year before Ferdinand was born.[8] In his Reminiscences Ferdinand recalled his excitement as a child when he was allowed to help wrap and unwrap his father's collection, which spent the summers in a strongroom when the family left Vienna for a country villa.[9]
The period after the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars offered tremendous opportunities for collectors of the decorative arts of the medieval and Renaissance periods. These categories were valued very little by the art market in general, and metalwork was routinely sold for its bullion value alone. Some of the older objects in precious metal in the collection may have first been received by the family as part of banking transactions; ownership of such pieces had always been partly a way to get some use from capital.[10] Ferdinand records several complaints that his father did not make more use of his opportunities, but in his last years Anselm began to expand his collecting range, and it was he who bought both the Holy Thorn Reliquary and the Ghisi Shield.[11] This golden age for collectors had passed by the time Ferdinand inherited his part of his father's collection in 1874, which was also the year he bought the Waddesdon estate and began to build there. Ferdinand continued to expand the collection until his death in 1898, mostly using dealers, and expanding the range of objects collected.[12] In particular Ferdinand expanded to around fifty to ten or so pieces of jewellery in his father's collection.[13]
The Smoking Room at Waddesdon Manor, original home of the collection
The New Smoking Room built to hold the collection was only planned from 1891, and the collection was moved in there in early 1896, less than three years before Ferdinand's death. Good photographs allow an appreciation of how the objects were displayed, in glassed cases and on open shelves around the walls, over doors, and over the small fireplace, which had an elaborate shelved chimneypiece in wood above. Several objects, including the Casket of Saint Valerie, were on tables away from the walls. Comfortable seating was plentiful, some upholstered with pieces from medieval vestments, and there were framed photographs and houseplants.[14] The room is now refilled with objects from the same period though of somewhat different types, and visitors to Waddesdon Manor can see it from the doorway.[15]
Baron Ferdinand Rothschild MP, about 1880
The room, with the adjoining Billiards Room, is the only reception room at Waddesdon Manor to follow the French Renaissance style of the exterior;[16] the other rooms are in broadly 18th-century styles, and contain a magnificent collection of paintings and furniture centred on that century. The segregation of the collection was part of the concept of what has been called the "neo-Kunstkammer", adopted by some other very wealthy collectors of the period.[17] The Renaissance Room at what is now the Wallace Collection and the collection of Sir Julius Wernher were other examples formed in England over the same period.[18] The neo-Kunstkammer aimed to emulate the collections formed during the Renaissance itself, mostly by princely houses; of these the outstanding survivals were the original Kunstkamera in St. Petersburg, Russia, the Habsburg collections in Vienna, Prague and Ambras, as well as the treasuries of the Green Vault in Dresden, the Munich Residenz and Kassel. Unlike those collections, contemporary and recent objects were not included.[19]
Baron Ferdinand was restless and, by his own account, an unhappy man, whose life was blighted by the death of his wife after giving birth to their only child, who was stillborn; this was in 1866. Thereafter he lived with his unmarried sister Alice. As well as filling positions in local public life, he was Liberal MP for Aylesbury from 1885 until his death, and from 1896 a Trustee of the British Museum, probably at the instigation of Sir Augustus Wollaston Franks.[20]
Ferdinand recognized and welcomed the drift of high quality art into public collections, which had begun in earnest during his time as a collector.[21] While most of his assets and collections were left to his sister Alice, the collection now forming the Bequest and, separately, a group of 15 manuscripts now in the British Library,[22] were left to the British Museum.[23] He had already donated some significant objects to the museum in his lifetime, which are not counted in the Bequest.[24]
Baron Ferdinand's bequest was most specific, and failure to observe the terms would make it void. It stated that the collection should be
placed in a special room to be called the Waddesdon Bequest Room separate and apart from the other contents of the Museum and thenceforth for ever thereafter, keep the same in such room or in some other room to be substituted for it.[25]
These terms are still observed, and until late 2014 the collection was shown in the rather small room 45, in a display opened in 1973.[26] In 2015 the Bequest was moved to Room 2A, a new, larger gallery on the ground floor, close to the main entrance on Museum Street.[27] Until the Chinese ceramics collection of the Percival David Foundation moved to the British Museum the Waddesdon Bequest was the only collection segregated in this way.[28]
Renaissance metalworkEdit
Detail of a basin
Much of the collection consists of luxury objects from the 16th century. Large pieces of metalwork in silver or silver-gilt make an immediate impression in the display, and these were designed to dazzle and impress guests when used at table, or displayed in rows on a sideboard with shelves like a modern bookcase or Welsh dresser.[29] Many are very heavily decorated in virtuoso displays of goldsmiths' technique; rather too heavily for conventional modern taste.[30] They are certainly ostentatious objects designed to display the wealth of their owner, and in many cases were designed to be appreciated when held in the hand, rather than seen under glass.[31]
There are a number of standing cups with a cover, many from Augsburg and Nuremberg; these were used to drink a toast from to welcome a guest, and were also a common gift presented in politics and diplomacy, and by cities to distinguished visitors. Their decoration sometimes reflected the latest taste, often drawing from designs made as prints and circulated around Europe, but there was also often a very conservative continuation of late Gothic styles, which persisted until they came to be part of a Neugotic ('Neo-Gothic') revival in the early 17th century.[32] The largest object in the bequest with a specifically Jewish connection is a silver-gilt standing cup made in Nuremberg about 1600, but by 1740 belonging to a Jewish burial society in Bratislava, as a Hebrew language inscription records.[33]
The Aspremont-Lynden basin, Antwerp, 1546–47
Apart from pieces purely in metal, a number are centred on either hardstone carvings or organic objects such as horns, seashells, ostrich eggshells, and exotic plant seeds.[34] These "curiosities" are typical of the taste of the Renaissance "age of discovery" and show the schatzkammer and the cabinet of curiosities overlapping.[35] A different form of novelty is represented by a table-ornament of a silver-gilt foot-high figure of a huntsman with a dog and brandishing a spear. There is a clockwork mechanism in his base which propels him along the table, and his head lifts off to show a cup, and he would have been used in drinking games. There are separate figures of a boar and stags for him to pursue, though not making a set; these can also function as cups.[36]
One of the most important objects in the collection is the Ghisi Shield, a parade shield never intended for use in battle, made by Giorgio Ghisi, who was both a goldsmith and an important printmaker. It is signed and dated 1554. With a sword hilt, dated 1570 and now in at the Hungarian National Museum in Budapest, this is the only surviving damascened metalwork by Ghisi. The shield is made of iron hammered in relief, then damascened with gold and partly plated with silver. It has an intricate design with a scene of battling horseman in the centre, within a frame, around which are four further frames containing allegorical female figures, the frames themselves incorporating minute and crowded subjects on a much smaller scale from the Iliad and ancient mythology, inlaid in gold.[37]
Other major pieces are sets of a ewer and basin, basin in this context meaning a large dish or salver, which when used were carried round by pairs of servants for guests to wash their hands without leaving the table. However the examples in the collection were probably hardly ever used for this, but were intended purely for display on sideboards; typically the basins are rather shallow for actual use. These were perhaps the grandest type of plate, with large surfaces where Mannerist inventiveness could run riot in the decoration. They were already expensive because of the weight of the precious metal, to which a huge amount of time by highly skilled silversmiths was added.[38] The Aspremont-Lynden set in the bequest is documented in that family back to 1610, some 65 years after it was made in Antwerp, and weighs a little less than five kilos.[39]
Two tall covered cups of ostrich eggs with mounts in silver-gilt
Top of the silver-gilt Aspremont-Lynden ewer, WB.89, Antwerp, mid-16th-century
Damascened iron plaque for a barding, showing Marcus Curtius, WB.15, Milan, 1560–70
Detail from the Ghisi Shield; a grotesque head in the larger scale above Horatius at the bridge in the smaller
Part of a set of 12 silver-gilt tazze, Augsburg, end of 16th century
Olympian scenes on a basin
Ewer with its basin above, German, 1559
The bell by Wenzel Jamnitzer, once owned by Horace Walpole and discussed below
Renaissance enamelsEdit
Detail of enamel dish, Limoges, mid-16th century, attributed to Jean de Court WB.33
Though the Waddesdon Bequest contains two very important medieval objects with enamel, and much of the jewellery and decorated cutlery uses enamel heavily, the great majority of the items that can be called "enamels" are in the French 16th-century style that was led by painted Limoges enamel, rather than the champlevé enamel for which Limoges was famous in the Romanesque period. The new technique produced pieces painted with highly detailed figurative scenes or decorative schemes. As with Italian maiolica, the imagery tended to be drawn from classical mythology or allegory, though the bequest includes some Old Testament scenes, and compositions were very often drawn from German, French or Italian prints. Enamels were produced in workshops which often persisted in the same family for several generations, and are often signed in the enamel, or identifiable, at least as far as the family or workshop, by punch marks on the back of panels, as well as by style. Leading artists represented in the collection include Suzanne de Court, Pierre Reymond, Jean de Court, Pierre Courtois and Léonard Limousin.[40]
Enamels were made as objects such as candlesticks, dishes, vessels and mirrors, and also as flat plaques to be included in other objects such as caskets. The collection includes all these types, with both unmounted plaques and caskets fitted with plaques. The jolly grotesques illustrated at right are on the reverse of a large dish whose main face shows a brightly coloured depiction of the Destruction of Pharaoh's army in the Red Sea.[41] Both designs are closely paralleled, without being exactly copied, in pieces in other collections, notably one in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The designs are also based on prints, but adapted by the enamellers for their pieces.[42]
The Casket of the Sibyls is an elaborate small locking casket with a framework of silver-gilt and gems, set with grisaille panels with touches of gold and flesh-tints. It represents the sophisticated court taste of about 1535, and was probably intended for a lady's jewels. Most such sets of enamel inserts have lost the settings they were intended for.[43]
Triumph of Caesar, Limoges c. 1550, attributed to Pierre Reymond, one of a set
Diane de Poitiers, in a chariot drawn by lions, Limoges c. 1600, attributed to Francois Limousin, WB.39
Jupiter, flanked by reading clerics with asses ears, rear of WB.30
Detail of dish with scene from the Book of Revelation, Limoges c. 1580, attributed to Pierre Courtois
JewelleryEdit
Pendant with mounted hippocamp, probably Paris, early 19th-century, WB.156
The emphasis of the jewellery is very firmly on spectacular badges and pendant jewels of the late Renaissance in what is known as the "Spanish Style" that was adopted throughout Europe between about 1550 and 1630, using gems together with gold and enamel to create dazzling tiny sculptures. These were originally worn by both men and women, but as a collection the Waddesdon group was chosen for display (and in a specifically male setting) rather than for wearing, except at the occasional fancy-dress ball, a fashion at the time. The group demonstrate little interest in gemstones and pearls for their own sake. Although such pieces have survived more often than styles emphasizing gem stones and massy gold, which were typically recycled for their materials when fashion changed, the demand from 19th-century collectors greatly exceeded the supply of authentic survivals, and many pieces include much work from that period (see below).[44]
For many of the pieces though it is not easy to place the date or country of manufacture. There is no such difficulty with the most famous jewel in the collection, the Lyte Jewel, which was made in London and presented to Thomas Lyte of Lytes Cary, Somerset in 1610 by King James I of England, who loved large jewels, and giving them to others. Lyte was not a regular at court, but he had drawn up a family tree tracing James's descent back to the legendary Trojan, Brut. The jewel contains a miniature portrait of the king by Nicholas Hilliard, though for conservation reasons this is now removed from the jewel. Lyte wears the jewel in a portrait of 1611, showing a drop below the main oval set with three diamonds, which had gone before 1882. The front cover has an elaborate openwork design with James's monogram IR, while the back has very finely executed enamel decoration.[45]
One pendant, shaped like a lantern with a tiny Crucifixion inside, was made in 16th-century Mexico, and from comparison with other pieces may originally have included Mexican feather work, a Pre-Columbian art whose craftspeople the Spanish missionaries employed in workshops for export luxury objects.[46]
Pendant with mounted cupid, German, late 16th-century, WB.160
Enamelled cover of an English locket, 1630s, with miniature of the Royalist general Sir Bevil Grenville, WB.168
Pendant with mounted warrior, German, mid-16th century, WB.161
Back of the Lyte Jewel
Objects from before the RenaissanceEdit
Holy Thorn Reliquary
The collection includes an eclectic group of objects of very high quality that predate the Renaissance. The oldest objects are a set of four Hellenistic bronze medallions with heads projecting in very high relief, and round handles hanging below. These date to the century before Christ, and came from a tomb in modern Turkey, and were fixtures for some wooden object, perhaps a chest. The heads are identified as Ariadne, Dionysus, Persephone and Pluto.[47] The carved agate body of WB.68 may be late Roman, and is discussed below.
The Palmer Cup is an important early Islamic glass cup, made around 1200, in Syria or perhaps Egypt, and painted in enamels. In the same century it was given a silver-gilt and rock crystal stem and foot in France. Below a poetic Arabic inscription praising wine-drinking, a seated prince holding a cup or glass is flanked by five standing attendants, two playing castanets and the others holding weapons. As an early enamel-painted image the cup is extremely rare in Islamic glass, although similar images in Mina'i ware painted Persian pottery of the period are found. There are a handful of comparable early Islamic glass cups with enamel that have survived in old European collections, such as the Luck of Edenhall in the Victoria and Albert Museum, and others in the Green Vault in Dresden and the Louvre, and others are recorded in old inventories. Often these were given a new foot in metalwork in Europe, as here.[48] There is also a large mosque lamp with enamelled decoration from the late 14th century.[49]
Romanesque art is represented by an unusually large Limoges enamel reliquary in the common chasse shape, like a gabled house. This was made in about 1170 to hold relics of Saint Valerie of Limoges, a virgin-martyr of the Roman period who was the most important local saint of Limoges, a key centre for Romanesque champlevé enamel. Her highly visual story is told in several scenes that use a wide range of colours, with the rest of the front face decorated in the "vermicular" style, with the space between the figure filled with scrolling motifs on a gold background. According to legend, St Valerie was a cephalophore saint, who after she was beheaded carried her own head to give to her bishop, Saint Martial, who had converted her.[50]
There are many more objects in a Gothic style, and as is typical for northern Europe several of these come from well into the 16th century, and should be considered as belonging to the Northern Renaissance. However the most important medieval object, and arguably the most important single piece in the collection, though from the late Gothic period, has nothing strictly Gothic in its style, and represents a very advanced court taste in this respect. This is the Holy Thorn Reliquary, which was probably created in the 1390s in Paris for the Valois prince John, Duke of Berry, to house a relic of the Crown of Thorns. It is one of a small number of major goldsmiths' works or joyaux that survive from the extravagant world of the courts of the Valois royal family around 1400. It is made of gold, lavishly decorated with jewels and pearls, and uses the technique of enamelling en ronde bosse, or 'in the round', which had been recently developed when the reliquary was made, to create a total of 28 three-dimensional figures, mostly in white enamel.[51]
In contrast, two highly elaborate metalwork covers for the treasure bindings of the Epistle and Gospel Books for the high altar of a large church, probably Ulm Minster, were made around 1506 but are full of spiky Gothic architectural details, although the many figures in high relief are on the verge of Renaissance style.[52]
There are two German statues of saints in wood, about half life-size, from the decades around 1500,[53] and a larger number of miniature boxwood carvings. These include "prayer nuts" of superb quality from around 1510 to 1530. These are small wooden "balls" which open up to reveal carvings of religious scenes that fit dozens of tiny figures into a space two or three inches across, and were a fashion among royalty and the wealthy; they were apparently made in the northern Netherlands. They seem to have often been suspended from belts, or formed part of a rosary; others still have copper carrying cases. A trick of technique in making them is that the main carved scene is made on a smaller hemisphere, allowing access from behind, which was then set into the main hemisphere.[54]
Hellenistic bronze fittings, with Pluto and Persephone
St Valerie as cephalophore, carrying her own head to her bishop, Saint Martial
Seated prince on the Palmer Cup
Resurrection of the Dead at the base of the Holy Thorn Reliquary
Rock crystal and hardstone piecesEdit
There are seven glass vessels in the collection, but a larger number of pieces in transparent rock crystal or quartz, a mineral that might easily be taken for glass. This was always a much more valuable and prestigious material, qualifying as a semi-precious stone. Needing very patient grinding and drilling, it is much harder to work than glass (though correspondingly less easy to break once finished), and the pieces include mounts or bases in precious metal,[55] which none of the actual glass has; nor are the rock crystal pieces painted. Read's catalogue groups these and other pieces in semi-precious stone with the objects in gold, as opposed to the "silver plate", which probably reflects how a Renaissance collector would have ranked them. There are ten pieces in crystal and nine in other stones.[56]
Two crystal pieces are plain oval plaques engraved with figurative scenes, a different tradition going back to pieces such as the Carolingian Lothair Crystal, also in the British Museum.[57] In 1902 Read's catalogue suggested that "It is to this section that in all probability most eyes will be attracted, as well for the beauty of the specimens as for their rarity and consequent cost"; if this was the case then, it is probably not so a century later.[58] Some pieces are now regarded as 19th-century, or largely so,[59] and Reinhold Vasters, the Van Meegeren of Renaissance metalwork, is now held responsible in several cases.[60]
A wide low crystal vase with cover is engraved with the name of the Mughal Emperor Akbar, and was long thought to have been German, but sent out to India as a diplomatic gift, as the metalwork mounts are clearly European in style. It is now seen as an original, and exceptionally rare, Mughal crystal carving, to which the mounts were added in the 19th century, perhaps in Paris. However the cartouche with Akbar's name does not seem to specialists correct for a contemporary court piece, and the vase in India was probably carved after his reign (1556–1605), and the name perhaps added even later.[61]
Rock crystal covered cup, around 1600, WB.76
Rock crystal covered cup, around 1600, WB.76
Jade, early 17th-century, the handle later, WB.81, Milan or Prague
Jade, early 17th-century, the handle later, WB.81, Milan or Prague
Rock crystal bucket, early 17th-century, the handle perhaps later, WB.80
Rock crystal bucket, early 17th-century, the handle perhaps later, WB.80
Detail of a silver Neptune in the mount of a crystal piece, probably by Reinhold Vasters about 1865–70, despite spurious 16th-century marks on the metal.[62]
Detail of a silver Neptune in the mount of a crystal piece, probably by Reinhold Vasters about 1865–70, despite spurious 16th-century marks on the metal.[62]
Renaissance glass
Edit
The Deblín Cup
Apart from the two pieces of Islamic glass described above, there are five Renaissance or Baroque glass vessels, all unusual and of exceptional quality. Most are Venetian glass; one is moulded opaque Bohemian glass (WB.56) with a Triumph of Neptune, and is now dated to the late 17th century; it is also dichroic glass, which changes colour depending on whether it is lit from the front or behind.[63] There is a very rare goblet in opaque turquoise glass with enamels (WB.55); this was to imitate or suggest a vessel in even more expensive semi-precious stone.[64] The late 15th-century Deblín Cup with its cover is one of a small group of vessels made in Murano, Venice in a German or Central European taste, drawing on metalwork shapes used there. It carries a later inscription in Czech urging that the health of the Lords of Deblín, near Brno, be drunk, and was probably the "welcome cup" of the castle there.[65]
Italian maiolica
Edit
The six pieces of painted Italian maiolica, or painted and tin-glazed earthenware, are all larger than the average, and there are none of the dishes that are the most common maiolica shape.[66] The earliest piece is a large statue of Fortuna standing on a dolphin, holding a sail, by Giovanni della Robbia, made in Florence about 1500–10.[67] This is a rare representative of the Early to High Italian Renaissance in the bequest.
The other pieces are from later in the 16th century. The most important are a pair of large snake-handled vases, nearly two feet (60 cm) high, painted with mythological scenes, to which French ormolu bases and lids were added shortly before they were bought in Paris by Horace Walpole for the "Gallery" at Strawberry Hill House in 1765–66. Ormolu mounts were often added by 18th-century collectors to such pieces, but few have remained in place.[68]
Goblet in opaque turquoise glass with enamel painted over (WB.55)
Goblet in opaque turquoise glass with enamel painted over (WB.55)
Maiolica pilgrim bottle, 1560–70
Maiolica pilgrim bottle, 1560–70
Fortuna standing on a dolphin, in maiolica, Florence, 1500–10
Fortuna standing on a dolphin, in maiolica, Florence, 1500–10
One of Horace Walpole's maiolica vases, 1565–71, with Parisian ormolu mounts
One of Horace Walpole's maiolica vases, 1565–71, with Parisian ormolu mounts
Other types of object
Edit
The collection includes a number of other objects, including a few guns, swords and military or hunting equipment. There is also a German brass "hunting calendar" with several thin leaves that unfold. These include recessed lines filled with wax, enabling the keen hunter on a large scale to record his bags of wolf, bear, deer, boar and rabbit, as well as the performance of his dogs.[69] There is a small cabinet with 11 drawers (plus other secret ones) made as a classical facade, or perhaps a theatre stage with scenery; the decoration is mostly damascened iron, and is 16th-century Milanese work.[70]
Apart from the older woodcarvings discussed above, the bequest includes a number of small mostly German Renaissance portraits as carvings in wood, either in relief or in the round. These are of very high quality and include two miniature busts by Conrad Meit of Philibert II, Duke of Savoy, who died young before the bust was made, and his Habsburg wife, Margaret of Austria.[71] There are also some medallion portraits in very soft stone, that allows fine detail, and one allegorical scene attributed to Peter Flötner.[72]
Inlaid stocks of two German guns
Inlaid stocks of two German guns
Boxwood miniature, German, 1544
Boxwood miniature, German, 1544
Portrait miniature in stone, 1544, Sigmund Pfinzing, aged 79, WB.255
Portrait miniature in stone, 1544, Sigmund Pfinzing, aged 79, WB.255
Enamelled gold miniature of Frederick Henry, Prince of Orange, 1627, WB.173
Enamelled gold miniature of Frederick Henry, Prince of Orange, 1627, WB.173
Fakes and revised attributions
Edit
Silver tankard, once called Dutch and late 17th-century, now "Berlin, 1826–1875 (?)";[73] WB.130
Any collection formed before the 20th century (and many later ones) is likely to contain pieces that can no longer sustain their original attributions. In general the Waddesdon Bequest can be said to have held up well in this regard, and the most significant brush with forgery has been to benefit the collection. In 1959 it was confirmed that the Waddesdon Holy Thorn Reliquary had been in the Habsburg Imperial Treasury in Vienna from 1677 onwards. It remained in Vienna until after 1860, when it appeared in an exhibition. Some time after this it was sent to be restored by Salomon Weininger, an art dealer with access to skilled craftsmen, who secretly made a number of copies.[74] He was later convicted of other forgeries, and died in prison in 1879, but it was still not realised that he had returned one of his copies of the reliquary to the Imperial collections instead of the original, and later sold the original, which is now in the bequest.[75] One of the copies remained in the Ecclesiastical Treasury of the Imperial Habsburg Court in Vienna, where the deception remained undetected for several decades.[76]
In the 19th century a number of types of object were especially subject to major reworking, combining some original parts with those newly made. This was especially a feature of arms and armour, jewellery,[77] and objects combining hardstone carvings and metal mounts. This was mostly done by dealers, but sometimes collectors also.
Another object with a complicated and somewhat uncertain history is a two-handled agate vase with Renaissance-style metal mounts, which was acquired, with other similar pieces, for Waddesdon from the Duke of Devonshire's collection about 1897, not long before Baron Ferdinand's death. Sir Hugh Tait's 1991 catalogue says of the vase:
"Origin:
(i) Carved agate: authenticity is uncertain; since 1899 loosely described as "antique Roman" or "antique", but recently attributed to the late Roman period, c. AD 400.
(ii) Enamelled gold mounts and cover: previously described as "Italian, 16th-century" and, subsequently, attributed to Benvenuto Cellini (1500–71) but now attributed to the hand of an early 19th-century copyist – before 1834 – perhaps working in London."
As he describes, it was Tait who overturned the attribution to Cellini in 1971.[78]
The agate vase, probably Roman, with later mounts
In a collection of Renaissance metalwork Benvenuto Cellini (1500–71) represents the ultimate attribution, as his genuine works as a goldsmith are rarer than paintings by Giorgione. In his 1902 catalogue Charles Hercules Read mentions that many of the pendants had been attributed to Cellini, but refrains from endorsing the attributions.[79] A small silver hand-bell (WB.95) had belonged to Horace Walpole, who praised it extravagantly in a letter as "the uniquest thing in the world, a silver bell for an inkstand made by Benvenuto Cellini. It makes one believe all the extravagant encomiums he bestows on himself; indeed so does his Perseus. Well, my bell is in the finest taste, and is swarmed by caterpillars, lizards, grasshoppers, flies, and masques, that you would take it for one of the plagues of Egypt. They are all in altissimo, nay in out-issimo relievo and yet almost invisible but with a glass. Such foliage, such fruitage!" However Baron Ferdinand had realized that it was more likely to be by Wenzel Jamnitzer, goldsmith to the Emperor Rudolf II, to whom it is still attributed.[80] Another piece no longer attributed to Cellini is a large bronze door-knocker, with a figure of Neptune, 40 cm high, and weighing over 11 kilos.[81]
One category of the bequest that has seen several demotions is the 16 pieces and sets of highly decorated cutlery (WB.201–216). Read dated none of these later than the 17th century, but on the British Museum database in 2014 several were dated to the 19th century, and were recent fraudulent creations when they entered the collection, some made by Reinhold Vasters.[82] Doubts have also been raised over a glass cup and cover bearing the date 1518 (WB.59), which might in fact be 19th-century.[83] Eight pieces of silver plate were redated to the 19th century by Hugh Tait, and some of the jewellery.
Display
Edit
The Waddesdon Bequest has been redisplayed in Gallery 2a since June 2015.
The Bequest was on display at the British Museum from 9 April 1900, in Room 40, which today contains the later medieval displays. An illustrated catalogue by Charles Hercules Read, who had replaced Franks as Keeper of British and Medieval Antiquities, was published in 1902. Photographs in the catalogue show a typical museum display for the period, with wood and glass cases spaced around the walls and free-standing in the centre, the latter with two levels. In 1921 it was moved to the North Wing.[84]
In 1973 the new setting in Room 45 aimed "to create an element of surprise and wonder" in a small space, where only the objects were brightly lit, and displayed in an outer octagon of wall cases, and an inner one of partition walls, rising to the low ceiling and set with shallow display cases, some visible from both sides. In the centre the Holy Thorn Reliquary occupied its own pillar display.[85]
The new ground floor room at the front of the museum, opened in June 2015, returns the Bequest to a larger space and a more open setting. It is in the oldest part of the building and some later accretions to the room have been removed as part of the new installation. The design is by the architects Stanton Williams, and the project received funding from The Rothschild Foundation.[86]
Notes
Edit
Contemporary Clay and Museum Culture, p. 187, 2016, Routledge, edited by Christie Brown, Julian Stair, Clare Twomey; "Renaissance jewels – authentic or forgery?", by Phillippa Plock, Waddesdon Manor blog; "The Rothschild family's extraordinary collection gets permanent display" by Rebecca Cope, The Tatler, July 2019; "Spectacular objects in the Schatzkammer genre that Baron Lionel bought during his lifetime included ..."
Thornton (2015), 12–20; Thornton (2011), throughout
Tait, 9–13
Read, quotations are his section headings; BM collection database, by catalogue numbers
Read, 9–10
Thornton (2015), 14–17, the quotation translated from a list of 1778 of dealers in Frankfurt
For more on Ferdinand's mother, from the English branch of the family, see "Charlotte 'Chilly' von Rothschild: mother, connoisseur, and artist" by Evelyn M. Cohen, The Rothschild Archive Annual Review, 2013
Thornton (2015), 18–23; 290–294. The silver Bacchus astride a pearlshell barrel at the bottom right of the visible part of the cabinet is BM collection database, WB.131, accessed 22 May 2015
Thornton (2015), 22, with quotation
Thornton (2015), 20–26, 289
Thornton (2015), 20–26
Thornton (2015), 14–17; Thornton (2011), 57–62
Thornton (2015), 26–31
Thornton (2015), 31–41; Thornton (2011), 65–67
Thornton (2015), 60–65
Thornton (2015), 14–17; Thornton (2011), 66
Thornton (2015), 32; Thornton (2011), throughout
Thornton (2015), 49–53
Thornton (2015), 47–51; Thornton (2011), throughout
Thornton (2015), 18–19, 53–54
Thornton (2015), 49, 53–55
Addit. MSS. 35310-24, see Seccombe
Thornton (2015), 53–57
Tait, 2
Read, xv–xvi has a fuller extract from the will; Tait, 9–13
Tait, 9
Thornton (2015), 65–71
The Percival David collection is on long-term loan to the museum, not actually owned by them.
Thornton (2015), 276–283; Tait, 62–68
Tait, 62–63; for the Mannerist aesthetic in general, see Shearman, especially Chapter 4
Tait, 63
Tait, 70–74
Thornton (2015), 284–289. WB 195 and 196 are elaborate Jewish wedding rings, illustrated at 289
Thornton (2015), 256–275, for those with organic animal elements
Tait, 70–71
Thornton (2015), 300–309; Tait, 80–81
Thornton (2015), 318–225; Tait, 60
Thornton (2015), 276–283; Tait, 62–68
Thornton (2015), 276–279; Tait, 63; BM collection database, WB.90 (basin), BM collection database, WB.89 (ewer), both accessed 31 December 2014
Tait, 42–49; Thornton (2015), 108–125
BM collection database, WB.33, accessed 31 December 2014
Vincent, 16–25, especially 18–19, 22
Thornton (2015), 108–115; The British Museum Collection online
Thornton (2015), 202–247; Tait, 50–51
Thornton (2015), 234–241; Tait, 54–55
Thornton (2015), 220–223
BM collection database, WB.1 a–d, accessed 28 December 2014. In Read WB.1 and WB.2 are each a pair. The dates and identifications have changed: Read dates them to "about 280 BC", Tait, 13, to the 2nd century BC.
Thornton (2015), 96–103; BM collection database, WB.53, accessed 28 December 2014
Thornton (2015), 104–107; BM collection database, WB.54, accessed 28 December 2014; Tait, 19
Thornton (2015), 87–95; BM collection database, WB.19, accessed 28 December 2014; Tait, 13–16
Cherry, throughout; Tait, 19–23
Gospel book cover: BM collection database, WB.87; epistle book cover: BM collection database, WB.88, both including long "Curator's comments", accessed 28 December 2014; Tait, 31 regards the pair as the front and rear covers of a single Gospel book.
Tait, 23–26
Thornton (2015), 162–194
Thornton (2015), 250–251
These are WB.68–86, see the entries in Read and the BM database. Thornton (2015), 248–255 covers some.
These are WB.84–86, see the entries in Read and the BM database.
Read, xii; Tait hardly mentions these in his 1981 overview, apart from the Gothic cup at p. 32, WB.119, now regarded as largely 19th-century.
BM collection database, WB.77
For Vasters, see for example WB.122 and WB.212 entries under "curator's comments" for the long discussion extracted from Tait's full catalogue.
BM collection database, WB.79
BM collection database, WB.122
Thornton (2015), 138–141
Thornton (2015), 132–137; Tait, 35
Thornton (2015), 126–130; Tait, 333–34
Thornton (2015), 142–161
BM collection database, WB.65, accessed 31 December 2015
Thornton (2015), 142–147; Tait, 37–40, who says they were "the most important"; WB 61 a and b
BM collection database, WB.228, accessed 31 December 2014
BM collection database, WB.16, accessed 31 December 2014
Thornton (2015), 196–203; Tait, 92–95
BM collection database, WB.252, accessed 31 December 2014
BM collection database, WB.130, accessed 29 December 2014; Read, #130
BM collection database, WB.67, especially "Acquisition notes", accessed 29 December 2014
Cherry, 50
Tait, 35–36; Cherry, 49–53; Ekserdjian, David, "The art of lying", The Independent, 16 September 1995, accessed 5 June 2010
Thornton (2015), 214–233
Tait's catalogue, quoted in BM collection database, WB.68, accessed 29 December 2014; Tait, 57–60; Read, xii–xiii
Read, xii–xii, and some individual entries on jewellery pieces.
Walpole letter to Sir Horace Mann of 14 February 1772, quoted from the Yale edition by Tait in his catalogue entry, extracted on the BM collection database, WB.95, accessed 29 December 2014 (italics added from the 1843 edition text); Thornton (2015), 310–317; Tait, 69–70
BM collection database, WB.3, accessed 29 December 2014
British Museum database entries for WB numbers now dated to the 19th century: 204, 209, 211, 212, 213 ("Origin: Uncertain; previously described as 'Dutch or French, late 16th-century', but more probably substantially altered in 19th century, perhaps in London"), 214, 215. No date is ventured for WB numbers: 201, 202, 203, 205, 207, 208, 216. For Vasters, see WB.212 entry under "curator's comments" for the long discussion extracted from Tait's full catalogue.
BM collection database, WB.59, accessed 29 December 2014
Thornton (2015), 57–59; the catalogue is "Read" here.
Tait, 9–11; Thornton (2015), 65
Thornton (2015), 65–71
References
Edit
Cherry, John. The Holy Thorn Reliquary, 2010, British Museum Press (British Museum objects in focus), ISBN 978-0-7141-2820-7
Read, Sir Charles Hercules, The Waddesdon Bequest: Catalogue of the Works of Art bequeathed to the British Museum by Baron Ferdinand Rothschild, M.P., 1898, 1902, British Museum, Fully available on the Internet Archive The catalogue numbers here are still used, and may be searched for on the BM website as "WB.1" etc.
Seccombe, Thomas (1901). "Rothschild, Ferdinand James de" . Dictionary of National Biography (1st supplement). London: Smith, Elder & Co.
Shearman, John, Mannerism, 1967, Pelican, London, ISBN 978-0-14-020808-5
Tait, Hugh, The Waddesdon Bequest, 1981, British Museum Publications, ISBN 978-0-7141-1357-9
Thornton, Dora (2001), "From Waddesdon to the British Museum: Baron Ferdinand Rothschild and his cabinet collection", Journal of the History of Collections, 2001, Volume 13, Issue 2, pp. 191–213, doi: 10.1093/jhc/13.2.191
Thornton, Dora (2015), A Rothschild Renaissance: The Waddesdon Bequest, 2015, British Museum Press, ISBN 978-0-7141-2345-5
Vincent, Clare, in The Robert Lehman Collection: Decorative arts. XV (Volume 15 of The Robert Lehman Collection, Metropolitan Museum of Art; several authors), 2012, Metropolitan Museum of Art, ISBN 978-1-58839-450-7, google books
Further reading
Edit
Tait, Hugh, A Catalogue of the Waddesdon Bequest in the British Museum, several volumes, British Museum. Volumes: I, The Jewels, 1986; II The Silver Plate, 1988; III The Curiosities, 1991. Generous extracts from these volumes are given at many entries on the British Museum collection database, usually under "Curator's comments". The catalogue does not cover the full collection.
Shirley, Pippa, and Thornton, Dora (eds.), A Rothschild Renaissance: A New Look at the Waddesdon Bequest in the British Museum (British Museum Research Publication), 2017, British Museum Press, ISBN 9780861592128
External links
Edit
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Room 2A, British Museum.
British Museum video on the new display, with the curator Dora Thornton (6.27 minutes)
"A Rothschild Renaissance: reimagining the Waddesdon Bequest", British Museum blogpost, by Dora Thornton, Curator of the Waddesdon Bequest and Renaissance Europe, British Museum
British Museum "Explore" feature on the 2015 display
British Museum on tumblr.com, features on 7 Waddesdon Bequest objects
For the boxwood carvings: "The Waddesdon Bequest at the British Museum Part 1 by Mark V Braimbridge" and Part 2, website of the European Boxwood and Topiary Society, reprinted from their journal Topiarius Vol. 14 Summer 2010 pp. 15–17, and Topiarius Vol. 15 (2011) pp. 20–23. Good photos of the boxwood carvings.
"The Rothschild treasures given centre stage at the British Museum", by Mick Brown, The Daily Telegraph, 16 May 2015, accessed 23 May 2015
"Renaissance Museum" exhibition about Ferdinand Rothschild's Smoking Room at Waddesdon Manor.
Jonathan Jones, review in The Guardian, 9 June 2015, "A distracting game of spot the fake: the Waddesdon Bequest – review"
Lecture on the new display by the curator and designer
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Hooded pitohui
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The hooded pitohui (Pitohui dichrous) is a species of bird in the genus Pitohui found in New Guinea. It was long thought to be a whistler (Pachycephalidae) but is now known to be in the Old World oriole family (Oriolidae). Within the oriole family this species is most closely related to the variable pitohuis in the genus Pitohui, and then the figbirds.
Hooded pitohui
Conservation status
Least Concern (IUCN 3.1)[1]
Scientific classification
Kingdom:
Animalia
Phylum:
Chordata
Class:
Aves
Order:
Passeriformes
Family:
Oriolidae
Genus:
Pitohui
Species:
P. dichrous
Binomial name
Pitohui dichrous
(Bonaparte, 1850)
Synonyms
Rectes dichrous Bonaparte, 1850
A medium-sized songbird with reddish-brown and black plumage, this species is one of the few known poisonous birds, containing a range of batrachotoxin compounds in its skin, feathers and other tissues. These toxins are thought to be derived from their diet, in a process known as kleptotoxicism, and may function both to deter predators and to protect the bird from parasites. The close resemblance of this species to other unrelated birds also known as pitohuis which are also poisonous is an example of convergent evolution and Müllerian mimicry. Their appearance is also mimicked by unrelated non-poisonous species, a phenomenon known as Batesian mimicry. The toxic nature of this bird is well known to local hunters, who avoid it. It is one of the most poisonous species of pitohui, but the toxicity of individual birds can vary geographically.
The hooded pitohui is found in forests from sea level up to 2,000 m (6,600 ft), but is most common in hills and low mountains. A social bird, it lives in family groups and frequently joins and even leads mixed-species foraging flocks. The diet is made up of fruits, seeds and invertebrates. This species is apparently a cooperative breeder, with family groups helping to protect the nest and feed the young. The hooded pitohui is common and is currently not at risk of extinction, with its numbers being stable.
Taxonomy and systematicsEdit
The hooded pitohui (Pitohui dichrous)[2] was described by the French ornithologist Charles Lucien Bonaparte in 1850.[3] Bonaparte placed it in the genus Rectes which had been erected in the same year by Ludwig Reichenbach as an alternative name for the genus Pitohui, which had been described by René Lesson in 1831. No explanation was given for the preference of the newer name over the established older one, but it was common to prefer Latin names over non-Latin names, and to provide Latin names to those without.[4] Richard Bowdler Sharpe encapsulated that attitude when he wrote in 1903 "Pitohui is doubtless an older name than Rectes, but can surely be laid aside as a barbarous word".[5][6] Eventually however the principle of priority, which favours the first formal name given to a taxon, was applied, and Rectes was suppressed as the junior synonym of Pitohui.[4]
The hooded pitohui was placed in the genus Pitohui with five other species, and the genus was thought to reside within the Australasian whistler family (Pachycephalidae).[7] A 2008 examination of the genus, however, found it to be polyphyletic (meaning that the genus contained unrelated species), with some purported members of the genus not actually falling within the whistlers. The hooded pitohui and the closely related variable pitohui were both found to be related to the Old World orioles (Oriolidae).[8] A 2010 study by the same team confirmed that the hooded pitohui and variable pitohui were orioles and indeed were sister species, and that together with the figbirds they formed a well defined basal clade within the family.[9] As the variable pitohui was the type species for the genus Pitohui,[a] the hooded pitohui was retained in that genus and the four remaining species were moved to other genera.[4]
The hooded pitohui is monotypic, lacking any subspecies. Birds in the south east of New Guinea are sometimes separated into a proposed subspecies, P. d. monticola, but the differences are very slight and the supposed subspecies are generally regarded as inseparable.[10]
Pitohui, the common name for the group and the genus name, is a Papuan term for rubbish bird, a reference to its inedibility.[11] The specific name dichrous is from the Ancient Greek word dikhrous for two coloured.[12] Alternate names for the hooded pitohui include the black-headed pitohui[13] and lesser pitohui.[14]
Physiology and descriptionEdit
The plumage of the hooded pitohui is dichromatic, black and reddish brown
The hooded pitohui is 22 to 23 cm (8.7–9.1 in) long and weighs 65–76 g (2.3–2.7 oz). The adult has a black upperwing, head, chin, throat and upper breast and a black tail. The rest of the plumage is a reddish brown. The bill and legs are black, and the irises are either reddish brown, dark brown or black. Both sexes look alike. Juvenile birds look like adults, except that the rectrices of the tail and remiges of the wing are tinged with brown.[10]
ToxicityEdit
The hooded pitohui uses the same family of batrachotoxin compounds as the golden poison frog of Colombia.
In 1990 scientists preparing the skins of the hooded pitohui for museum collections experienced numbness and burning when handling them. It was reported in 1992 that this species and some other pitohuis contained a neurotoxin called homobatrachotoxin, a derivative of batrachotoxin, in their tissues. This made them the first documented poisonous birds,[15] other than some reports of coturnism caused by consuming quail (although toxicity in quails is unusual), and the first bird discovered with toxins in the skin.[16] The same toxin had previously been found only in Colombian poison dart frogs from the genus Phyllobates (family Dendrobatidae). The batrachotoxin family of compounds are the most toxic compounds by weight in nature,[17] being 250 times more toxic than strychnine.[18] Later research found that the hooded pitohui had other batrachotoxins in its skin, including batrachotoxinin-A cis-crotonate, batrachotoxinin-A and batrachotoxinin-A 3′-hydroxypentanoate.[19]
Bioassays of their tissue found that the skins and feathers were the most toxic, the heart and liver less toxic, and the skeletal muscles the least toxic parts of the birds.[17] Of the feathers the toxin is most prevalent in those covering the breast and belly.[19] Microscopy has shown that the toxins are sequestered in the skin in organelles analogous to lamellar bodies and are secreted into the feathers.[20] The presence of the toxins in muscle, heart and liver shows that hooded pitohuis have a form of insensitivity to batrachotoxins.[17] A 65 g (2.3 oz) bird has been estimated to have up to 20 μg of toxins in its skin and up to 3 μg in its feathers.[15] This can vary dramatically geographically and by individual, and some have been collected with no detectable toxins.[19]
The poisonous pitohuis, including the hooded pitohui, are not thought to create the toxic compound themselves but instead sequester them from their diet. Phyllobates frogs kept in captivity do not develop the toxins, and the extent of the toxicity varies both in the pitohuis across their range and also across the range of the unrelated blue-capped ifrit, another New Guinean bird found with toxic skin and feathers. Both of these facts suggest that the toxins are obtained from the diet.[19] The presence of the toxins in the internal organs as well as the skins and feathers rules out the possibility that the toxins are applied topically from an unknown source by the birds.[17]
One possible source has been identified in the forests of New Guinea: beetles of the genus Choresine (family Melyridae), which contain the toxin and have been found in the stomachs of hooded pitohui. An alternative explanation, that the birds and beetles both get the toxin from a third source, is considered unlikely as the blue-capped ifrit is almost exclusively insectivorous.[18]
EcologyEdit
The function of the toxins to the hooded pitohui has been the source of debate and research since its discovery. The initial suggestion was that the toxins acted as a chemical deterrent to predators.[15] Some researchers cautioned this suggestion was premature,[21] and others noted that the levels of batrachotoxins were three orders of magnitude lower than in the poison dart frogs that do use it in this way.[22]
Another explanation for the purpose of the toxins is to mitigate the effects of parasites.[22] In experimental conditions chewing lice were shown to avoid toxic feathers of hooded pitohui in favour of feathers with lower concentrations of toxin or no toxins at all. Additionally lice that did live in the toxic feathers did not live as long as control lice, suggesting that the toxins could lessen both the incidence of infestation and the severity.[23] A comparative study of the tick loads of wild birds in New Guinea would seem to support the idea, as hooded pitohuis had considerably fewer ticks than almost all the 30 genera examined.[24] The batrachotoxins do not seem to have an effect on internal parasites such as Haemoproteus or the malaria-causing Plasmodium.[25]
Brown tree snakes are bird predators that have been shown to be vulnerable to the poisons found in hooded pitohui.
A number of authors have noted that the two explanations, as a chemical defence against predators and as a chemical defence against ectoparasites, are not mutually exclusive, and evidence for both explanations exists.[16][24] The fact that the highest concentrations of toxins are bound in the feathers of the breast and belly, in both pitohuis and ifrits, has caused scientists to suggest that the toxins rub off on eggs and nestlings providing protection against predators and nest parasites.[19]
One argument in favour of the toxin acting as a defence against predators is the apparent Müllerian mimicry in some of the various unrelated pitohui species, which all have similar plumage. The species known as pitohuis were long thought congeneric, due to their similarities in plumage, but are now spread through three families,[b] the oriole, whistlers and Australo-Papuan bellbirds. The similarity in appearance therefore presumably evolved as a shared aposematic signal to common predators of their distasteful nature.[26][27] This signal is reinforced by the species' strong sour odor.[15] There is also evidence that some other birds in New Guinea have evolved Batesian mimicry, where a non-toxic species adopts the appearance of a toxic species. An example of this is the non-toxic juvenile greater melampitta, which has plumage similar to the hooded pitohui.[27]
There have also been experiments to test pitohui batrachotoxins on potential predators. They have been shown to irritate the buccal membranes of brown tree snakes and green tree pythons, both of which are avian predators in New Guinea. The unpalatability of the species is also known to local hunters, who otherwise hunt songbirds of the same size.[17]
The existence of resistance to batrachotoxins and the use of those toxins as chemical defences by several bird families have led to competing theories as to its evolutionary history. Jønsson (2008) suggested that it was an ancestral adaptation in Corvoidea songbirds, and that further studies would reveal more toxic birds.[8] Dumbacher (2008) argued instead that it was an example of convergent evolution.[27]
Distribution and habitatEdit
The hooded pitohui is endemic to the islands of New Guinea. It is found widely across the main island, and also on the nearby island of Yapen. It inhabits rainforest, forest edge habitats and secondary growth, and sometimes mangrove forests. It is most commonly found in hills and low mountains, between 350–1,700 m (1,150–5,580 ft), but is found locally down to sea-level and up to 2,000 m (6,600 ft). It typically occurs at higher elevations than the lowland variable pitohui and lower than the (unrelated) black pitohui, although there is some overlap.[10]
BehaviourEdit
CallsEdit
The hooded pitohui makes a variety of calls, mostly forms of whistles. Its song is a variable collection of three to seven whistles, which can slur up or down with hesitant pauses in between. Usually the song begins with two similar notes followed by an upslur. It also makes an "tuk tuk w'oh tuw'uow" call, two whistled "woiy, woiy" notes, two downslurred whistled "tiuw tow" notes, and three whistles "hui-whui-whooee", which increase in volume.[10]
Diet and feedingEdit
The diet of the hooded pitohui is dominated by fruit, particularly figs of the genus Ficus, grass seeds, some insects and other invertebrates,[10] and possibly small vertebrates.[19] Among the invertebrates found in their diet are beetles, spiders, earwigs, bugs (Hemiptera, including the families Membracidae and Lygaeidae), flies (Diptera), caterpillars and ants.[28][29] They feed at all levels of the forest, from the forest floor to the canopy,[10] and are reported to do so in small groups, presumably of related birds.[30] The species also regularly joins mixed-species foraging flocks, and on Yapen and between 1,100–1,300 m (3,600–4,300 ft) above sea-level it will often act as the flock leader. This leadership role, and indeed their participation in mixed flocks, is not true across all of their range however.[31]
BreedingEdit
Little is known about the breeding biology of the hooded pitohui and its relatives due to the difficulties of studying the species high in the canopy of New Guinea.[30] Nests with eggs of the hooded pitohui have been found from October through to February.[10] The nest that has been described was 2 m (7 ft) off the ground. The nest is a cup of vine tendrils, lined with finer vines and suspended on thin branches.[10][30]
The clutch is one to two eggs, 27 mm–32.8 mm × 20.5 mm–22.2 mm (1.06 in–1.29 in × 0.81 in–0.87 in), which are creamy or pinkish with brown to black spots and blotches and faint grey patches; in one egg all the markings with at the larger end.[10][32] The incubation period is not known, but the species is thought to be a cooperative breeder, as more than two birds in a group have been observed defending the nest from intruders and feeding the young. Young birds, which are covered in white down as nestlings before developing their adult plumage,[33] have been observed being fed acorn-shaped red berries and insects. Young birds will make a threat display when approached in the nest, rising up and erecting their head feathers. As chicks develop directly into adult plumage, it has been suggested that this display may be signalling its identity as a toxic species, even though young birds have not developed toxicity at that age.[30]
Relationship with humansEdit
The preparation of study skins for museums led to the discovery of toxins in the skins of hooded pitohui.
The toxic and unpalatable nature of the hooded pitohui has long been known to local people in New Guinea, and this knowledge has been recorded by Western scientists as far back as 1895.[34] In spite of this, and reports of toxicity in birds going back to classic antiquity, before the discovery that the hooded pitohui was toxic, toxicity was not a trait that scientists attributed to birds. The discovery of toxicity in birds, triggered by this species, sparked interest in the subject and a re-examination of older accounts of unpalatability and toxicity in birds, although the field is still understudied.[16]
Status and conservationEdit
Common and widespread throughout New Guinea, the hooded pitohui is evaluated as a species of least concern on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.[1] In one study of the effects of small subsistence gardens, populations of hooded pitohui were lower in disturbed agricultural habitat in the lowlands, compared to undisturbed forest, but actually increased in disturbed habitat higher in the mountains.[35]
NotesEdit
^ Since then the variable pitohui has been split into three species:Northern variable pitohui (Pitohui kirhocephalus)
Raja Ampat pitohui (Pitohui cerviniventris)
Southern variable pitohui (Pitohui uropygialis)[2]
^ Or four, if the shrikethrushes are treated as a separate family, Colluricinclidae, from the whistlers.[4]
ReferencesEdit
^ Jump up to:a b BirdLife International (2018). "Pitohui dichrous". IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. 2018: e.T22705576A130390714. doi:10.2305/IUCN.UK.2018-2.RLTS.T22705576A130390714.en. Retrieved 19 November 2021.
^ Jump up to:a b Gill, F.; Donsker, D., eds. (2017). "Orioles, drongos & fantails". IOC World Bird List (v 7.2). Retrieved 10 June 2017.
^ Bonaparte, Charles Lucien (1850). "Note sur plusieurs familles naturelles d'oiseaux, et descriptions d'espèces nouvelles". Comptes Rendus Hebdomadaires des Séances de l'Académie des Sciences (in French). 31: 561–564 [563].
^ Jump up to:a b c d Dumbacher, J. P. (2014). "A taxonomic revision of the genus Pitohui Lesson, 1831 (Oriolidae), with historical notes on names" (PDF). Bulletin of the British Ornithologists' Club. 134 (1): 19–22.
^ Sharpe, Richard Bowdler (1903). A Hand-List of the Genera and Species of Birds: Volume 4. Vol. 4. London: Trustees of the British Museum. p. 267.
^ Quoted in Dumbacher (2014), p. 20
^ Boles, Walter (2007). "Family Pachycephalidae (Whistlers)". In del Hoyo, Josep; Elliott, Andrew; Christie, David (eds.). Handbook of the Birds of the World. Volume 12: Picathartes to Tits and Chickadees. Barcelona: Lynx Edicions. p. 380. ISBN 978-84-96553-42-2.
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^ Jønsson, Knud A.; Bowie, Rauri C. K.; Moyle, Robert G.; Irestedt, Martin; Christidis, Les; Norman, Janette A.; Fjeldså, Jon (2010). "Phylogeny and biogeography of Oriolidae (Aves: Passeriformes)". Ecography. 33 (2): 232–241. doi:10.1111/j.1600-0587.2010.06167.x.
^ Jump up to:a b c d e f g h i Boles, W. (2020). del Hoyo, Josep; Elliott, Andrew; Sargatal, Jordi; Christie, David A; de Juana, Eduardo (eds.). "Hooded Pitohui (Pitohui dichrous)". Handbook of the Birds of the World Alive. Barcelona: Lynx Edicions. doi:10.2173/bow.hoopit1.01. S2CID 216419243. Retrieved 2 June 2017.
^ Jobling, J. (2017). "Key to Scientific Names in Ornithology: Pitohui". Handbook of the Birds of the World Alive. Barcelona: Lynx Edicions. Retrieved 14 June 2017.
^ Jobling, J. (2017). "Key to Scientific Names in Ornithology: dikhrous ". Handbook of the Birds of the World Alive. Barcelona: Lynx Edicions. Retrieved 7 June 2017.
^ Diamond, Jared M. (1983). "Melampitta gigantea: possible relation between feather structure and underground roosting habits" (PDF). The Condor. 85 (1): 89–91. doi:10.2307/1367895. JSTOR 1367895.
^ "Pitohui dichrous - Avibase". avibase.bsc-eoc.org. Retrieved 2017-06-03.
^ Jump up to:a b c d Dumbacher, J.; Beehler, B.; Spande, T.; Garraffo, H.; Daly, J. (1992). "Homobatrachotoxin in the genus Pitohui: chemical defense in birds?". Science. 258 (5083): 799–801. Bibcode:1992Sci...258..799D. doi:10.1126/science.1439786. PMID 1439786.
^ Jump up to:a b c Ligabue-Braun, Rodrigo; Carlini, Célia Regina (2015). "Poisonous birds: A timely review". Toxicon. 99: 102–108. doi:10.1016/j.toxicon.2015.03.020. hdl:10923/23106. PMID 25839151.
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^ Jump up to:a b Dumbacher, J. P.; Wako, A.; Derrickson, S. R.; Samuelson, A.; Spande, T. F.; Daly, J. W. (2004). "Melyrid beetles (Choresine): A putative source for the batrachotoxin alkaloids found in poison-dart frogs and toxic passerine birds". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 101 (45): 15857–15860. Bibcode:2004PNAS..10115857D. doi:10.1073/pnas.0407197101. PMC 528779. PMID 15520388.
^ Jump up to:a b c d e f Dumbacher, J. P.; Spande, T. F.; Daly, J. W. (2000). "Batrachotoxin alkaloids from passerine birds: A second toxic bird genus (Ifrita kowaldi) from New Guinea". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 97 (24): 12970–12975. Bibcode:2000PNAS...9712970D. doi:10.1073/pnas.200346897. PMC 27162. PMID 11035772.
^ Menon, Gopinathan K.; Dumbacher, John P. (2014). "A "toxin mantle" as defensive barrier in a tropical bird: evolutionary exploitation of the basic permeability barrier forming organelles". Experimental Dermatology. 23 (4): 288–290. doi:10.1111/exd.12367. PMID 24617754.
^ Glendinning, J. (1993). "Pitohui: how toxic and to whom?". Science. 259 (5095): 582–583. Bibcode:1993Sci...259..582G. doi:10.1126/science.8430299. PMID 8430299. S2CID 206631249.
^ Jump up to:a b Poulsen, B. O. (1994). "Poison in birds: against predators or ectoparasites?". Emu. 94 (2): 128–129. doi:10.1071/MU9940128.
^ Dumbacher, John P. (1999). "Evolution of toxicity in Pitohuis: I. Effects of homobatrachotoxin on chewing lice (Order Phthiraptera)" (PDF). The Auk. 116 (4): 957–963. doi:10.2307/4089675. JSTOR 4089675.
^ Jump up to:a b Mouritsen, Kim N.; Madsen, Jørn (1994). "Toxic birds: defence against parasites?" (PDF). Oikos. 69 (2): 357. doi:10.2307/3546161. JSTOR 3546161.
^ Beadell, J.; Gering, E.; Austin, J.; Dumbacher, J.; Peirce, M.; Pratt, T.; Atkinson, C.; Fleischer, R. (2004). "Prevalence and differential host-specificity of two avian blood parasite genera in the Australo-Papuan region" (PDF). Molecular Ecology. 13 (12): 3829–3844. doi:10.1111/j.1365-294X.2004.02363.x. PMID 15548295. S2CID 19317909.
^ Dumbacher, J. P.; Fleischer, R. C. (2001). "Phylogenetic evidence for colour pattern convergence in toxic pitohuis: Mullerian mimicry in birds?". Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. 268 (1480): 1971–1976. doi:10.1098/rspb.2001.1717. PMC 1088837. PMID 11571042.
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^ Parker, S.A. (1962). "Notes on some undescribed eggs from New Guinea". Bulletin of the British Ornithologists' Club. 82: 132–133.
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External linksEdit
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Pitohui dichrous.
Xeno-canto: audio recordings of the hooded pitohui.
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Isambard Kingdom Brunel (1806–1859) was an English civil and mechanical engineer. The son of French engineer Marc Isambard Brunel, he worked under his father as an assistant engineer on the Thames Tunnel project for several years until he was seriously injured in a flooding incident. During his recuperation he began a design for a bridge in Bristol, which would later be completed as the Clifton Suspension Bridge. In 1833, Brunel was appointed chief engineer of the Great Western Railway, overseeing development of the main line from London to Bristol which was completed in 1841. Brunel's other achievements included the design of the first transatlantic steamship and dockyards. This 1857 photograph, titled Isambard Kingdom Brunel Standing Before the Launching Chains of the Great Eastern, was taken by Robert Howlett. It depicts Brunel standing before a drum of chain used during the launching of SS Great Eastern at Millwall in London; he carries a cigar case, and his boots and trousers are muddy.
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