Footnotes

• Numerous similar models are to be found in various collections including the Victoria and Albert Museum and the British Museum. There are two models in the British Museum collection, one of which was bequeathed by Sir Hans Sloane. It is listed in the Hans Sloane Manuscript Catalogue: 'The model of the temple of the Sepulchre of our Lord Jesus Christ & of Mount Calvary in Jeruslaem - with an explication of the same, beads, measures &c.' Sloane had another model of "The model of the temple at Bethlehem" with the price he had paid for it, £5, 7 shillings and 6 pence.
  
  These models are all of similar form and were probably made in the Holy Land itself. They record the rebuilding of the tomb and Church by Boniface of Ragusa in 1555 and appear from the early 17th century onwards. They appear to be related to drawings of the church made by the architect and Franciscan Bernadino Amico in the 1590s, for model makers to use. These models were probably made in Bethlehem under Franciscan supervision as gifts for diplomats and rulers and as souvenirs for grand tourists. There is an example of one recorded in the Danish Kunstkammer in 1674 and another is datable to the same period as it appears on the arms of Charles II and Catherine of Braganza.
  
  A similar example of was sold at Christies, King Street, London, 5 December 1995, lot 64 £14,950.

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Category: Furniture / European Furniture and Works of Art

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