Saints and Salvation
The Wilshere Collection offers a remarkable insight into one Englishman's enthusiasm for the early Christian church. A wealthy landowner travelling frequently to Italy, Charles Wilshere (1814-1906) saw it as his mission to acquaint the British with the then brand-new subject of early Christian archaeology and art. Newly discovered documentation, including correspondence held at the Vatican Library and the Biblioteca San Luigi, Posilippo, recount Wilshere's acquisition of a remarkable collection of early Christian, Jewish and pagan gold-glass, sarcophagi and inscriptions, shipped to England for public display.
Previously unpublished evidence presents the reader with intriguing new information about the provenance of the collection. In addition to this, recent scientific analysis of the objects, now in the collections of the Ashmolean Museum, allows major new insights, notably into the origin of gold-glass and its use in fourth-century Rome.
Dr Susan Walker is President of the Society for Libyan Studies, Honorary Curator (formerly Sackler Keeper) of Antiquities at the Ashmolean Museum and Emerita Fellow of Wolfson College, University of Oxford. Additional material has been supplied by David Rini (Vatican archives and history of collecting), Sean Leatherbury (DPhil cand. University of Oxford, preparation and assistance with research), Patrick Degryse (University of Leuven, analysis of glass), Peter Ditchfield (University of Oxford, analysis of marbles and mortar).