The greatest treasure of the City of London has been, until now, the least known. The unique Crystal Sceptre of c.1420 - seen only at the inauguration of the Lord Mayor and at coronations, and never photographed before - is here presented with as much as is known of its history, its materials and their origins and its first recorded outing, to the coronation of Catherine of Valois, the wife of King Henry V, in 1421 at Westminster Abbey. Timed to coinicide with the first ever public exhibition of the Crystal Sceptre, which opens on the occasion of the 600-year anniversary of the Battle of Agincourt, this new book will present the Sceptre and over 80 of the finest and most historic pieces in the plate collection at Mansion House - the home, office and centre of entertainment for the Lord Mayor of the City of London. The regalia includes several famous items, notably the 16th-century gold and enamel Chain of Esses, the great Mace of 1735-36 and the Pearl Sword of the 1570s, carried by the Lord Mayor before the Sovereign on visits to the City. The silver-gilt and silver, used constantly during the year, includes pieces by some of the greatest names of English silversmithing - Paul de Lamerie and Paul Storr, for example - but also rare ones by more modern masters - Latino Movio and Omar Ramsden - including masterpieces previously completely unknown to silver historians. An inscription on a silver-gilt cup presented to the Lord Mayor in 1741 records that the intention of the gift was to increas - the Honour and Grandeur - of the City of London. It is just one piece of a vast, eclectic and exceptional collection of plate, which is constantly in use at the Guildhall and Mansion House today to uphold that honour and in the grandest way possible - a rare survival of medieval practices of display. The quality and quantity of the 19th- and 20th-century pieces in particular is extraordinary. This volume is the third in the series on the treasures of Mansion House, following The Harold Samuel Collection of Dutch and Flemish Paintings (2012) and Magnificent Marble Statutes: A Guide to the Sculpture at the Mansion House (2013). Intended to introduce to a broad audience the plate collection - as well as the history of the Lord Mayors, the City guilds and Mansion House itself, and the formation of the collection, it will also be of interest to specialists in silver, who will discover many masterpieces of style and technique.

The Harold Samuel Collection Art Collection of Dutch and Flemish seventeenth-century pictures is one of the finest groups of Old Master paintings assembled in Britain over the past hundred years, but one of the least known. Sir Harold Samuel, 1st and last Lord Samuel of Wych Cross (1912-1987) bequeathed the collection to the City of London to hang at Mansion House. Now in the care of the Guildhall Museum and Art Gallery, the collection of 84 paintings can be viewed at Mansion House on organized tours or by appointment. Built between 1732 and 1754, the House is the home, office and center of entertaining for the Lord Mayor of the City of London and the Corporation. This guide will enable visitors to take a tour through Mansion House and discover the artists and their subjects - landscapes, still lifes and genre scenes - the development of styles, forms, materials and techniques, and the history of the collection. Highlights include works by Frans Hals, Aelbert Cuyp, Jan van Goyen, Jacob van Ruisdael and Pieter de Hooch. Lively and insightful entries accompany beautiful reproductions of every painting and are introduced by an essay about the creation of the collection and the history of artistic taste in relation to Dutch art. Michael Hall gained his PhD, on collecting Old Master paintings in the nineteenth century, from the Courtauld Institute of Art in 2005. For the past twenty-five years he has been curator of the Rothschild family collections at Exbury in Hampshire. He has been a Visiting Scholar at the Getty Research Institute in Los Angekes and was J. Clawson Mills Fellow at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. He has catalogued the collection of gold boxes at the Huntington Art Gallery in San Marino, California, and writes on French decorative arts and on collecting Old Master paintings. Clare Gifford is a doctor of science and medicine. She has over recent years become greatly interested in the history and culture of 'the City that made the world'. Her husband Roger was elected Lord Mayor of London for 2012-13. The Harold Samuel Collection is a unique collection of 17th-century paintings from Holland's Golden Age. Bequeathed to the City of London in 1987 by Sir Harold Samuel of Wych Cross (1912-1987), a wealthy property developer and philanthropist, this remarkable collection of 84 works - the finest collection of Dutch and Flemish art assembled privately in the UK in the last hundred years - enriches the splendour of the interior of the Mansion House, residence of the Lord Mayor of London. This book marks the 25th anniversary of the bequest. Proceeds from the sale of the book will go towards the Lord Mayor's Appeal which primarily supports the City Music Foundation, and the Harold Samuel Collection Fund, recently set up for the conservation and maintenance of the paintings. This publication, introduced by an essay of the Collection and the history of artistic taste in relation to Dutch art, has lively and insightful entries accompanying beautiful reproductions of each painting. The Merry Lute Player by Frans Hals (1582/3-1666) is perhaps the best known picture in the Collection, the first painting to be bought via a transatlantic telephone bid, but Samuel also gathered outstanding examples of genre painting, indeed several of the finest workds in existence by Nicolaes Maes, Jacob Ochtervelt, Adriaen van Ostade and Jan Steen.