Please note availability is limited for weekend house admissions during our Christmas period, book now to avoid disappointment. Admission charges apply for Christmas at Waddesdon, including National Trust Members.

What's On

Trail

Riches of the Earth

until 28 Oct 2018, Wed-Sun

12pm-4pm

House
Free with house and grounds admission
This is a past exhibition
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Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild’s collection was full of objects made of precious materials: hardstones, minerals, silver and gold. Many examples of these extraordinary objects are still to be found throughout Waddesdon.  Discover them through this self-led trail of the Manor.

Circle of Georg Schreiber, circle of Jacob Heise, Casket, 1660, acc. no. 3145

Waddesdon is full of works of art that celebrate, embody or express the wealth of the Earth. A trail around the house highlights some of these riches– earthenware and porcelain clays worked into vessels and sculptures, rocks mined from the earth and made into jewelry, caskets and chimney-pieces, minerals and plants transformed into dyes and pigments in tapestries and paintings and furniture of rare woods, resins, stones and metals

– as well as allegorical representations of the wealth of the earth. Some of the smaller objects and items from store are gathered together in the Exhibition Room so that visitors can closely examine materials, techniques and the different attitudes to these objects in the 18th century, when many of them were created, and the 19th century, when they entered Rothschild collections.