A thorn that is claimed to be a relic from Jesus’s crucifixion crown would soon go on display at the British Museum in London.
The crown of thorns is said to have been seized from Constantinople during the Fourth Crusade — around 1,200 AD — and was later sold to King Louis IX of France while he was in Venice. King Louis kept the relic in the specially-built Saint Chapel and the thorns were broken off from the crown and given as gifts to people who married into the family.
The thorn at Stonyhurst College — a 400-year-old boarding school in Lancashire — was said to have been given to Mary Queen of Scots who married into the French royal family and she took it with her to Edinburgh. After her execution in 1587, it was passed from her loyal servant, Thomas Percy, to his daughter, Elizabeth Woodruff, who then gave it to a Jesuit priest in 1600. The priest brought it to the college and it has been kept at the Ribble Valley College ever since, the Daily Mail reported.
The thorn now is to be loaned to the British Museum for a new exhibition.
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Painting bought for £100 in UK is worth £40m
London: A painting bought for only £100 from a junk shop in Britain has been estimated at £40 million. The painting’s £100 price tag was only for its designer frame. The buyer noticed a signature in a corner. And under the scrawled name was the date 1854.
Experts say the piece — showing a house with an orange roof surrounded by trees next to a river — is reminiscent of the works of French artist Cezanne that could be worth £40 million.
The buyer said he had removed the canvas from the frame and removed “decades of dirt” before examining it. “I bought a book on post-impressionism and checked the signature and it looks exactly the same as on some of his other paintings,” he said. “To say I’m excited would be an understatement. I just bought it for the frame.”
—IANS