A stunning collection of Renaissance silverware worth tens of millions of pounds has been bequeathed to Oxford University’s Ashmolean Museum.

The haul of nearly 500 items, “the most important gift of its type to a British museum for over a century”, was donated by the late collector Michael Wellby.

The collection includes a rare lapis lazuli bowl, made by Dutch goldsmith Paulus van Vianen, valued at £3m.

A selection of the objects will go on temporary display from next month.

They will be housed in the museum’s West Meets East gallery before the entire collection is showcased in a permanent gallery.

Professor Tim Wilson, keeper of the department of western art, said: “The Ashmolean is extremely grateful to Michael and his family.

Oxford’s Ashmolean Museum has received a donation of silver treasures from Michael Wellby

“This is the most important accession of objects of this sort to any UK museum since the bequest of objects from Waddesdon Manor by Ferdinand Rothschild to the British Museum in 1898.”

Much of the collection was assembled in the 1940s from German sources, and Professor Wilson conceded some of the pieces may later transpire to have been looted by the Nazis.

He told the BBC’s Arts and Culture Correspondent, David Sillito: “Michael was never terribly forthcoming about where things have come from so there’s quite a lot of research about that to be done.

“It is perfectly true that these are the kinds of objects which Jewish collectors had in quantity. It is not impossible that one or two of these objects may, as research goes on, prove to have come from collections which were the subject of spoliation during the Nazi period.

“The British Government has a very honourable system of dealing with claims from affected families. The museum is fully signed up to that.”

However, an Ashmolean spokesman added: “There is no reason to suppose Mr Wellby ever knowingly acquired any object that he knew or had reason to believe to have been looted from or sold under duress by a Jewish family in the period of Nazi rule”.

Wellby, who died last year, was a renowned Mayfair dealer, specialising in German silver of the 16th and 17th Centuries. He sold many of the pieces he acquired through the family business but held on to some of the more exceptional items for his personal collection.

One of the most significant pieces is a silver gilt ewer, or pitcher, made in Portugal around 1510-15, which is enamelled with the Royal Arms of Portugal.

Other pieces incorporate ivory, agate, shell, and rock crystal.

Wellby’s personal jewellery collection was auctioned off at Sotheby’s last month, raising more than £2.8m.

guardian:

Now if this isn’t worth a thumbs up, I don’t know what is: an amateur Australian prospector who hadn’t had much luck searching for gold has struck it rich, unearthing a nugget heavier than a newborn baby and worth more than A$300,000 (£198,000).

Photograph: David Caird/Newspix/Rex Features

mothernaturenetwork:

Scientists coax bacteria to produce pure gold nuggets

Money may still not grow on trees, but scientists from Michigan State University have discovered the next closest thing: bacteria that can transform toxic chemicals into pure, 24-karat gold, according to MSU News.

The bacterium with the Midas touch, Cupriavidus metallidurans, was coaxed into producing real gold nuggets simply by exposing it to copious amounts of gold chloride, a toxic liquid substance with no actual value but which is found naturally in the environment. The bacterium gobbles up the gold chloride, ingesting all of the liquid’s toxins and waste, and leaves behind only solid gold. It just goes to show that one bacterium’s waste is another organism’s treasure.

“Microbial alchemy is what we’re doing — transforming gold from something that has no value into a solid, precious metal that’s valuable,” said Kazem Kashefi, assistant professor of microbiology and molecular genetics at Michigan State University.

Kashefi, along with associate professor of electronic art and intermedia Adam Brown, conceived of the method. Rather than get rich, the two professors are instead using their gold-producing bacteria as part of an art exhibit titled, “The Great Work of the Metal Lover.” The exhibit makes use of the researchers’ odd visionary combination of biotechnology, art and alchemy to produce gold in front of an audience. The work received an honorable mention at the Prix Ars Electronica cyber art convention. (There was no evidence of the researchers paying off the judges with gold nuggets.)

“This is neo-alchemy. Every part, every detail of the project is a cross between modern microbiology and alchemy,” explained Brown. “Science tries to explain the phenomenological world. As an artist, I’m trying to create a phenomenon. Art has the ability to push scientific inquiry.”

The analogy to alchemy, the ancient practice of transforming base metals into noble metals like gold or silver, is an apt one. Although the practices of ancient alchemists have been widely debunked as pseudoscience and charlatanism, Kashefi and Brown’s method could rewrite the history books.

The gold produced using this method is also as pure as it gets: 99.9 percent pure. But is lab-produced gold as valuable as natural gold? Kashefi and Brown have yet to test the market on that, but they suspect the method they use in the lab is similar to how many gold nuggets get produced in nature. After all, both gold chloride and Cupriavidus metallidurans occur naturally. All it takes is for the two of them to naturally run into each other.

Given that the price of gold is currently through the roof, you might already have gotten the idea to begin duplicating this process in your garage. But before you get that twinkle in your eye, keep in mind that Kashefi and Brown have already crunched the numbers, and they attest that the experiment is not cost-effective enough to turn a worthy profit.

And besides, if gold really was so easy to produce, its value would undoubtedly sink.

PICTURED ABOVE: The burning of gold-mercury amalgam. The use of mercury to extract gold poses health risks to artisanal miners.

UN-backed meeting seeks to establish global treaty to reduce use of mercury

Over 500 representatives from governments and civil society organizations are taking part in a United Nations-backed meeting in Punta del Este, Uruguay, which seeks to negotiate a global treaty that would reduce the use of mercury.

The Executive Director of the UN Environment Programme, Achim Steiner, said the six-day meeting will help governments work towards a common goal in reducing “the exposure of significant numbers of people across the globe to a highly hazardous substance whose impacts on human health are well known – and in doing so make a serious contribution to sustainable development and a transition to an inclusive green economy in the wake of Rio+20.”

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Gold! Haiti hopes ore find will spur mining boom

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Cash in the attic! $1million in gold coins rains down from the rafters as workers renovate vineyard building in France

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Newfound tombs in Central America are yielding thousand-year-old gold, gems, and even hints of murder by pufferfish. But the real treasure is the excavation’s clues to the unnamed civilization of the so-called golden chiefs of Panama, archaeologists say.

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Afghanistan opens bids on gold and copper deposits

Despite ongoing violence, Afghanistan has high hopes that its budding mining industry will generate billions in revenue to help rebuild the nation after 30 years of war.

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The world’s largest gold coin has been unveiled at the Perth Mint in Australia to mark to opening of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in the Western Australia capital.

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