In this month’s Curious about Collections blog post, we are excited to share with you a special preview of our new digital Highlights Gallery, which will be available to all via the Winchester Cathedral website from spring 2023.
Over the next few months, our team will work with web developers to create a bespoke online gallery, which will bring some of the most fascinating and impressive objects from our collections to a wider audience.
The online gallery will use high-resolution imagery to showcase the beauty and originality of items. Viewers will have the option to zoom in and explore objects up close. The gallery will also include text to help you to make sense of our collections and recommendations for where to go if you would like to find out more.
Most importantly, the Highlights Gallery will feature a variety of objects – this includes items already on public display in our permanent Kings & Scribes exhibition, but also pieces which are not currently available to view in person. In this way, the online gallery will give viewers an opportunity to access and experience unseen objects, and to set them in context alongside familiar pieces from the Kings & Scribes exhibition.
This week, we worked with Jordan Pettitt, Senior Photographer at Solent News, to produce the first tranche of images for the Highlights Gallery. Special thanks to Jordan, who was able to capture stunning pictures in challenging, limited conditions, including this spectacular image of a queen’s head. This life-sized sculpture was reconstructed from fragments during the 19th century and again in 1987. It is believed the head may have been originally displayed in the chantry chapel of William of Wykeham, Bishop of Winchester 1367-1404.
