Diana Heath, Senior Metals Conservator at the V&A, describes the challenges of treating the Wolsey Angels – rare examples of copper figures created for the English Tudor court at the height of the Renaissance, between 1524 and 1529. The Angels were made by the Italian sculptor, Benedetto da Rovezzano (1474–1554), to adorn a magnificent tomb commissioned by Cardinal Thomas Wolsey. After the English Civil War, the Angels disappeared, and were only recently rediscovered, having stood unrecognised on the gateposts of a stately home in Northamptonshire, perhaps for centuries.
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