Month: February 2026

Luxurious silk slipper with royal connection goes on display

Modern(ish), Museums

A luxurious silk and leather shoe believed to have been worn by King James II is going on display at the Killerton estate in Devon, home to the National Trust’s largest collection of historic fashion numbering more than 22,000 pieces.

The slipper dates to the late 17th century and is made from fine-grained leather in a deep red color and gold silk brocade. The leather lines the inner sole and the broad block heels. The silk upper is decorated with a floral pattern woven in a blue-green thread. The colors have faded over the centuries, and would originally have been bright yellow and green. It was stitched to the sole with white thread. These open-backed shoes (mules) were typically worn indoors.

Research suggests the slipper may have been left as a royal gift during King James II’s stay in Coventry. During his visit, he was honoured with a banquet at the Guildhall and lodged nearby in what later became Palace Yard, a site destroyed during the Coventry Blitz.

It was customary for royal guests to leave gifts, often embroidered gloves. In this case, a pair of silk slippers may have been given. Only one has surfaced to date.

There is no incontrovertible evidence of a royal provenance. The slipper previously belonged to costume collector Paulise de Bush who bequeathed her entire collection to the National Trust after her death in 1975. A museum tag from the de Bush collection references the James II Coventry history, but does not document when or where Pauline de Bush acquired the slipper. The Trust is currently researching the slipper’s history, hoping to confirm that it was worn by James II.

This year’s History off the Hanger exhibition at Killerton focuses on pieces featured in the newly-published National Trust book 100 Things to Wear. The slipper is one of 10 pieces from the vast Killerton collection to appear in the book. The exhibition will also give visitors a glance behind the curtain to reveal how Killerton’s conservators preserve the objects in the collection.

Analysis Nördlingen bronze sword shines spotlight on Bronze Age craftsmanship

Ancient

A scientific investigation of the spectacular 3,400-year-old highly decorated bronze sword discovered in Nördlingen, Southern Germany, in 2023 has uncovered how the metal was worked, the sword constructed and decorated. The exceptional state of preservation of the weapon — it is intact from pommel to tip, still shines in some place and has a honed edge — gave researchers a unique opportunity to reveal new information about Bronze Age metalwork and craft techniques.

The Bavarian State Office for the Preservation of Monuments (BLfD) sent the sword to Berlin where it was analyzed using non-destructive methods including 3D computed tomography, X-ray diffraction and X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy. The results found the metal was worked with an incredibly high level of precision and skill.

The resolution of the 3D CT scans is so high that every detail is exposed, down to the tool marks left on the weapon. Examination of the imaging found that the blade was clamped and riveted to the hilt with a tang, just like great German steel kitchen knives are today.

The deep grooves on the pommel and pommel plate that form a geometric pattern contain what appears to be a different material from the bronze. Just based on how the what the material looked like, researchers expected the decoration in the grooves to be tin, which is soft and malleable and easy to use on such a tiny detail job. Instead, X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy, which floods the surface of the object with synchrotron radiation, causing atoms to emit measurable element-specific X-rays, identified the inlaid material as copper wires joined together. Copper is a harder material, and much more difficult to work with than tin would have been to inlay into grooves. It attests to have highly skilled the metalworker could be.

Traces of tin and, in some places, a little lead, which probably came from the bronze alloy, were also detectable. ’We are familiar with this type of inlay work using copper wires in bronze from other finds,’ says [Dr Johann-Friedrich Tolksdorf, regional representative of the BLfD]. ‘To make the reddish copper stand out better from the gold-coloured bronze, it may have been patinated, i.e. chemically blackened, for example with urine.’ […]

The thorough evaluation of the measurement data will take some time, after which the experts plan to publish their results and conclusions. ‘We hope that we will also be able to reconstruct whether this sword was made in a specific workshop, for example – so far, we can only assume that it was manufactured in southern Germany, one of the two main areas where octagonal swords were prevalent in the Bronze Age in Germany,’ says Tolksdorf.

Royal Palace of Naples thrones is from Savoy reign, not Bourbon

Modern(ish), Museums

The gilded throne in the Royal Palace of Naples has returned to the Throne Room after a 16-month absence for restoration. The cleaning, repair and regilding has made its decoration legible again, and new research has discovered that it was commissioned by the Bourbon kings of Naples as long believed, but rather by the House of Savoy, kings of Italy. It is also a little younger than previously known.

The throne went all the way up north to be restored by the experts at the “La Venaria Reale” Conservation and Restoration Center (CNR) in Turin. They have specific experience in throne restoration, so they followed the same protocol, applies the same analyses and technologies they used to restore, for example, the throne of the Quirinal Palace in Rome. The team took complete digital X-rays of the throne to get detailed information on its construction. They then revived the gilding with lasers. The precision of laser technology allowed conservators to remove past alterations and substances that had oxidized, causing the original gold layer to look dark and dingy without resorting to harsh solvents and chemicals. It also preserved two different layers of gilding that had been applied in the past.

After the cleaning, conservators consolidated areas where the materials were loose. The structure of the chair was made of soft conifer wood, with decorative accents in poplar and linden wood. They were in poor condition and areas of loss needed to be shored up with a gesso and glue mixture before regilding.

Unfortunately the fabric in the seat, backrest and footrest were too damaged to repair. They were replaced by contemporary textiles of the same kind and color. The braided tassel fringe was also largely in unsavable condition. The few braid sections that were in useable condition were carefully cleaned and reattached. The rest were replaced by a company that specializes in reproducing historic trim. The new braided trim was sewn to the fabric one braid at a time as it was done originally.

The textiles in the Throne Room — the carpet is rests on, the covering of the dais, the curtains, valances and canopy — all needed extensive repair and some replacements as well. The palace’s restorers worked directly in the Throne Room in public view for three months to make the space ready for the return of the throne.

While the throne was undergoing conservation, art historians at the Royal Palace of Naples searched the archives and discovered that the catalogue entry that listed the throne as a Bourbon work commissioned between 1845 and 1850, was inaccurate. It was in fact commissioned by the Savoy family in 1874 after the Unification of Italy.

Mosaics displayed under floor of new Istanbul museum

Ancient, Museums

An intact mosaic from Late Antiquity discovered during restoration of a historic municipal building in Istanbul is now a floor again, covered in plexiglass and welcoming visitors to the new Zeytinburnu Mosaic Museum.

Visitors of Turkey’s newest museum move across elevated glass walkways, suspended right above the original floors themselves. The mosaics are not relocated fragments mounted on walls, but surfaces that remain exactly where they were first laid, preserving their context for all to see.

Beyond the floors, the museum presents terracotta vessels, coins from various centuries and the marble sarcophagus discovered on site. With its library and exhibition spaces too, the institution is more than one archaeological stop, it forms part of a broader cultural revitalisation in Zeytinburnu.

The 190-square-meter (2,045 square feet) mosaic floor was discovered in 2015 when the Ottoman-era military hospital building from 1893 was being converted into an art center. The decorative patterns of stars, geometric knots, polygonal shapes, and florals date the mosaic to fourth or fifth centuries. It was likely installed in a suburban Roman villa, as the location was outside the ancient walls of Constantinople.

All construction was suspended and a systematic archaeological excavation ensued. In addition to the full mosaic, a subsequent excavation in 2019 uncovered a marble sarcophagus containing the skeletal remains of two people, a brick tomb, terracotta vases and coins. These finds date to different periods, attesting to use of the site over centuries long after the floor was made.

Turkey has an enormous patrimony of Roman and Byzantine mosaics, and there are currently eight museums in the country dedicated to displaying these masterpieces of ancient art. What distinguishes the Zeytinburnu Mosaic Museum from ones like the Hatay Archaeological Museum, famous for a collection of ancient mosaics of unparalleled variety and quality, is that its mosaic has been left in situ instead of being removed, conserved and reinstalled in an exhibition space. The only comparable treatment is in a hotel that has become an accidental museum now by virtue of the fact that the world’s largest mosaic, a dazzling tour-de-force of geometric patterns and psychedelic floor undulations, was discovered there during construction.

Early Bronze Age chieftain burial found in France

Ancient

An Early Bronze Age estate with a richly furnished chieftain burial in the town of Écouché-les-Vallées in northwestern France’s Normandy region. It dates to around 1900-1800 B.C. and contains valuable grave goods including arrowheads, daggers and a fragment of a rock crystal pendant.

Archaeologists are excavating the site in advance of quarry expansion and have so far unearthed evidence of a Neolithic settlement as well as a grave from the Bronze Age Armorican Tumulus culture. The culture is known for the elaborate burials of their elites covered by a mound of earth (hence the name), but their graves had varied designs. Pit graves like this one are common. While the tumuli contained the remains of a single chieftain at the top of social hierarchy, less prominent graves are also deemed chiefly tombs based on the prestigious grave goods they contained. Daggers, axes and arrowheads were symbols of wealth and power, not just weapons.

The pit grave at Écouché-les-Vallées was originally covered by a tumulus, now lost. Most of tumuli have been found in Brittany, with only six known so far in Normandy. No skeletal remains were found in the tomb. The highly acidic soil in the area devoured the bone.

It contained 31 flint arrowheads of exceptionally refined craftsmanship. They are of the Armorican type: ie, finely cut to an extremely thin edge out of blond flint. The two bronze daggers found in the grave are also of the Armorican type, characterized by their riveted fastening and mesh decoration along the edges. The larger of the two is a foot long and was sheathed in leather, fragments of which remain on the blade. The other is eight inches long and was in a wicker sheath.

The discovery of the Écouché-les-Vallées tomb echoes another discovery in the neighboring commune of Loucé and fits into a broader context, as several exceptional Early Bronze Age sites have been identified in the area: a cult enclosure in Loucé, a few hundred meters away, and a large enclosure in Moulins-sur-Orne, six kilometers away. This presence of several Early Bronze Age sites on both sides of the Orne River contributes to making the area a vast domain, of which the Écouché-les-Vallées burial would represent the ruling elite.