THE ANTIQUARIAN: Lady Hester Stanhope 1776-1839
Minerva|July/August 2020
It is unusual to feature in a magazine like ours a woman who ordered an ancient statue ‘broken in a thousand pieces’. In April 1815, Lady Hester Stanhope was in Israel, at a site called Ashkelon.
Simon Coppock
THE ANTIQUARIAN: Lady Hester Stanhope 1776-1839

She had been given a medieval Italian manuscript that seemed to pinpoint buried Christian treasure, not least a vast hoard under Ashkelon’s ancient mosque. But finding only the marble statue, nearly seven feet tall without its head, Lady Hester ordered it smashed to see, it is said, if there was gold inside.

This story is from the July/August 2020 edition of Minerva.

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