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Wednesday, 10th March 2010 (1302 views)

An exhibition of items from the collection of 18th century historian Horace Walpole has opened in London, with a gold locket containing a lock of Mary Tudor's hair among the objects on show.

The Horace Walpole and Strawberry Hill event at the V&A Museum runs until July 4th and features over 250 items from the collector's possessions.

Walpole kept his collection of artwork and artefacts at Strawberry Hill, a Georgian gothic revival house situated by the Thames that is due to reopen to the public this year.

The gold locket bears an engraving on the back revealing that the lock of hair within was cut from Mary Tudor's head on September 6th 1784, when her St Edmundsbury tomb was opened.

Among the other items on display in the exhibition is a suit of golden parade armour, believed by Walpole to have been made especially for King Francis I of France.

Visitors will also be able to see numerous portrait miniatures, larger paintings, a pair of gloves thought to have belonged to King James I and an Aztec mirror that was used by Dr Dee, an Elizabethan magician and astrologer.

 

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