Bath’s Holburne museum to unveil ‘art chamber’ of Renaissance masterpieces

Beneath the Georgian city of Bath, a gleaming treasury of Renaissance masterpieces created for kings, queens, church leaders and scientists is about to be unveiled.

Based on the idea of the Renaissance kunstkammer – an art chamber – the basement room at the Holburne Museum is crammed with scores of exquisite pieces of silverware, paintings, bronzes and ceramics.

They include an astonishing model of a silver ship, a rare mechanical celestial globe and a silver-gilt vessel likely to have belonged to Henry VIII.

“It’s wonderful having pieces here that you’d usually see in places like the Met in New York or the British Museum,” said Chris Stephens, director of the Holburne .

The treasures were collected over many decades by the Schroder family , who made their fortune as merchants an