The Paston Treasure: The Lives behind the Picture

Spike Bucklow, Reader in Material Culture at the University of Cambridge, outlines the results of a technical examination of The Paston Treasure painting and places them in an anthropological context. He gives an account of the origin of Sir Robert Paston’s wealth and his exotic treasures, as well as his family’s fate. The ways in which civil war, plague, trade, alchemy, and Anglicanism helped shape the painting are also considered.