Sometimes, an heraldic artifact can be found just hanging in someone's house, the owner having no clue as to its historical significance.
Such is the case of a depiction of Cardinal Thomas Wolsey's coat of arms, for nearly 200 years hanging in Gwysaney Hall, the North Wales home of the Davies-Cooke family. It had been presumed that the 23" by 23" artifact was a replica produced early in Queen Victoria's reign.
Wrong!
The carved and painted wooden achievement of arms was part of a collection of relics which sold at auction in Berkshire for a combined £17,000 last year. But the vendor suspected it might be older than previously thought. So they commissioned scientific analysis, which included analysing tree ring sequences, and now believe it was made in 1525.
Wolsey died in 1530.
It will go on display at West End art gallery Simon Dickinson, Ltd. before being sold for a fixed price of £250,000 - 15 times what it went for at auction a year ago. (So well out of my price range!)
A Simon Dickinson spokesperson said: "For at least 200 years the coat-of-arms have been Gwynsaney Hall in the North Wales home of the Davies-Cooke family. Until recent research at Dickinson, they were thought to have been made in Queen Victoria's reign as a historical anachronism."
According to the National Archives, a Wolsey coat of arms hung in Thomas Cromwell's London mansion at Austin Friars in 1527. Could it have been this one? Well, maybe.
Speculation like that aside, you can read a lot more in the Daily Mail article on-line at: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15241817/Coat-arms-Henry-VIIIs-condemned-adviser-500-years-Victorian-replica-hanging-Welsh-home-Cardinal-Thomas-Wolseys-original.html
All I can say is: "Wow! What a find!"
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