Medieval

For the Boys...
9
We - of a certain age - all remember the
major highlight of the museums of our
childhood: the dioramas. Before youtube
this was - apart from immersions into
books - the closest we might get to timetravel.
For a long time, though, these delights
have been stored in dusty warehouses, forgotten
and unloved.
However, in connection with the major
exhibition at the Tower this autumn, a special
diorama was commissioned.
Its construction was overseen by David
Marshall of MM Dioramas, working in
close collaboration with the Perry brothers
of Perry Miniatures, who completed
the action figures. The Sceptre of Henry V
For the first time in 600 years, a sceptre
King Henry V gave to the City of London
in gratitude for its support in the Hundred
Years’ War will go on public display.
Providing a visual interpretation of the
terrain, the key protagonists and some of
the main points of action during the day,
the ambitious detailed model has taken
over two years to complete and features
over 4,000 individually painted figures.
Into the ground has even been molded a
couple of handfulls of the original mud
scooped up from the famous quagmire in
which so many fine french men-at-arms
suffocated or drowned.
Already, the diorama has garnered an
enourmous interest among curators and
communication experts. The reason is,
that such dioramas still seem to be able to
fascinate both children and grown-ups.
It is arguably still the best way of getting a
sense of the strategy of this most famous
battle!
The Royal Armouries’ blog has a series
of posts describing how the diorama was
brought about.
Photos: ©HRP/R. Lea Hair and James Mason