The Paston Treasure (The Yarmouth Collection)

The Paston Treasure is a unique work portraying a very small portion of the magnificent collection once owned by the Pastons of Oxnead Hall. The picture belongs within the mid-seventeenth century Dutch still-life tradition. Elements such as the clock, watch, sand-glass, mirror and the just-extinguished candle conform to the genre of so-called Vanitas or ‘vanity’ still-life. Artefacts representing worldly wealth are combined with reminders of time and death.

Most Vanitas paintings contain one or two gilded objects which are artists’ stock items, included only for their symbolism. Here, the known survival of five objects from The Paston Treasure proves that most of the items portrayed, and very probably all, were real. The artefacts, just twelve from a collection of hundreds, must have been carefully chosen, perhaps to illustrate family history or particular moments in time.

Recent technical analysis has revealed the way the picture was painted. It is now clear that the treasures, which scarcely overlap one another, were painted first. They were probably brought for the artist to paint one by one, so the composition was never set up in reality as we see it on canvas. Despite research, the artist remains anonymous.

The figures were planned into the painting from the start. The little girl is probably Margaret Paston, Robert’s daughter. The young man has not been identified. He may have been an enslaved servant at Oxnead Hall, or may have been painted from studies the artist made elsewhere. A woman, painted out at top right but revealed by x-rays and now just visible, may have been the wife of either William or Robert but why she was painted out is unknown.

Analysis also shows that the artist used around twenty pigments: an unusually large number. Some have undergone chemical change and significant fading. The canvas no longer looks as the artist intended.

The donor’s Norfolk family, the Buxtons, bought the picture from Oxnead Hall in 1709. The Pastons went bankrupt in 1732, but started to sell off their collection from the 1690s.

The Paston Treasure is currently on display at Norwich Castle Museum & Art Gallery.