The Tudor Heart appeal
Please continue to support us
Thanks to you, the campaign has successfully raised £3.5 million, which means the Tudor Heart Pendant will remain on public display for generations to come.
Your response has been absolutely incredible, with over 45,000 people giving individual donations totalling £380,000, which is more than 10% of the total.
The National Heritage Memorial Fund secured the campaign's success with a donation of £1.75 million marking its 45th anniversary as a fund of last resort for the UK's most exceptional heritage.
Other major donations came from the Julia Rausing Trust which gave £500,000, Art Fund, including a contribution from The Rought Fund, who gave £400,000, American Friends of the British Museum who gave £300,000, and numerous other arts bodies and individual philanthropists.
To make sure everyone in the UK has the chance to see and enjoy the Tudor Heart, the British Museum is working on plans for a future tour, including putting it on display in Warwickshire, near to where it was found.
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I want to say a heartfelt thank you to everyone who supported our campaign and to the National Heritage Memorial Fund for so generously donating £1.75m. The success of the campaign shows the power of history to spark the imagination and why objects like the Tudor Heart should be in a museum.
Dr Nicholas Cullinan OBE, Director of the British Museum
The Tudor Heart Pendant
In December 2019 a metal detectorist in Warwickshire found a spectacular Tudor Heart jewel associated with Henry VIII and his first wife Katherine of Aragon in the ground after centuries of rest.
The Tudor Heart Pendant is unlike any object in the British Museum collection or elsewhere in the UK. This highly accomplished jewel with enamelled motifs is attached to a 75-link gold chain by a suspension clasp in the form of a hand emerging from a cloud. Every element of the suite has been made using the purest gold. The front of the pendant is decorated with a white and red Tudor rose entwined with a pomegranate bush. The pomegranate was the personal emblem of Queen Katherine, representing fertility and her Spanish homeland. The hidden face is decorated with the initials 'H' and 'K' united by a tasselled cord. Both sides carry a French motto, toujours meaning always.
Few objects survive to tell the story of Henry's life with the devoutly Catholic Katherine, a consequence of the annulment of their marriage in 1533. Their union was the longest of all of Henry's, lasting 24 years it decisively shaped the first three decades of his reign.
Research led by the British Museum has revealed that the Tudor Heart Pendant may have been made to celebrate the betrothal of their two-year-old daughter Princess Mary to the eight-month-old French heir-apparent in 1518. Mary would go on to become the first queen regnant, ruling England in her own right.
As well as commemorating Henry and Katherine's love, ambition and Katherine's importance as Henry's first queen, the Tudor Heart Pendant also unveils this little-told part of Mary's story.
A powerful witness to pivotal years in English history, the Tudor Heart Pendant offers a tantalising glimpse into the splendour of Henry VIII's early court and celebrates chivalry, love and dynastic hope.
The Tudor Heart Pendant is on display in Room 2: Collecting the world.
Tudor Heart supporters
Supported by
With additional support from
American Friends of the British Museum
With further support from
The Taylor Family Collection
John J. Studzinski CBE
The John Horseman Trust
Boodles
McCorquodale Charitable Trust
Arts4Kent
Sir Charlie Mayfield
Oliver and Johanna Hudson
Pamela and John Jenkins
The Wakefield Trust
Tyler Family Fund
Miss Hilary Williams MA
The British Museum Patrons
The British Museum Friends
Supporters of the public appeal
And all donors who wish to remain anonymous
