Preview: Medieval Gallery, Gallery 40, the British Museum, opening March 25 2009
Up the wide staircases, through the galleries teeming with schoolkids and behind locked doors, the latest themed room at the British Museum is being carefully guarded.
Glass panels are being cleaned, cases are being measured and Curator James Robinson is donning a fetching pair of blue plastic gloves as he oversees the final touches to the new Medieval Gallery, which will be officially opened by David Cameron tomorrow (March 24 2009).
Cameron probably knows a thing or two about the sort of "aristocratic amusement" it contains, but he'd struggle to outdo Robinson, who has written an accompanying book, Masterpieces of Medieval Art, and is cautiously optimistic about his exhibition.
Curator James Robinson is tentatively pleased with his work
"It's taken four years to complete. That sounds long, but it’s actually quite a quick turnaround for such a huge thing," he explains, which is true when you consider both the 450-year period covered and the breadth of objects across British, European and Byzantine archives.
The division of material has been broadly labelled, with "sin and salvation" on one side ("that was mine", admits Robinson, upon being congratulated for the salacious quality of his title) and "hunting and feasting" on the other.
The show covers a 450-year period
"Star objects" are either given a red background or framed between the two flanks, leaving a multitude of curiosities shaded by blue backdrops.
"They're intended to be really vivid colours, sourced from medieval paintings," says Robinson. "We've tried to condense the gallery so that you can still get it even if you’ve only got ten minutes.
Fragments of ancient decorations feature
"Everything is from the high end of society – unfortunately the poor are invisible because the places where pieces were preserved were the gentlemen’s collections and palaces, but we're not trying to do a complete history."
A vivid colour scheme provides the backdrop to the exhibits
Part of the quest is archaeological, combining intricate slabs of pavement from Byland Abbey in North Yorkshire, reassembled from tiles found on the site where monks used to buy them with the proceeds from wools sales, with monastic sculpture from Lewes Priory in Sussex and religious imagery.
Slabs of pavement from sacred sites have been restored
A wall painting from St Stephen's Chapel at the Palace of Westminster was originally designed by King Edward I to compete with the Sainte Chapelle in Paris, depicting scenes from the Book of Job involving the death of Job's offspring in a test of faith devised by Satan.
The Lewis chessmen stand in the middle of the gallery
There's part of a brass recreation of a dead Bishop next to a 13th century staff from Belgium, Dutch purses from 1450 and bowls and coins from Cyprus and Jerusalem among examples of the sort of Byzantine art which influenced Christian cultures across Western Europe.
The figures were found on the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides and were probably made in Norway in the later half of the 12th century. Picture © the Trustees of the British Museum
The Tristram Tiles, a tale of an adulterous love affair between a Knight and his uncle's wife, is evoked through floor tiles showing the beginning of the story, which was hugely popular in English courts in the late 13th century, but it's an ancient set of the Lewis chessmen which threatens to steal the show.
Reflecting "the order of feudal society" (Robinson wrote about them in 2004), the board dates from between 1150 and 1200, showing rooks biting their shields in reproductions of Norse heroes, Queens adopting poses based on the Virgin Mary and Kings bearing swords on their laps.
