Catholic "Treasures of Heaven" in England

THE INDEPENDENT
By Adrian Hamilton

Reliquary pendant from the Holy Thorn (c.1340)
Treasures of Heaven, British Museum, London WC1 (020 7323 8181) to 9 October

ENGLAND - To hold an exhibition of sacred Roman Catholic relics in a country with quite so secular and Protestant a history as Britain's was always going to be a delicate affair. Which poses the question for any museum: do you present them as art objects, things of beauty and fascination in their own right, or do you display them as spiritual vessels helping us to understand and feel what the thousands who once pressed to view them believed? "I think it's fair to say that in America the display veered towards the artistic side," says the British Museum's curator, James Robinson. "Here we're trying to be more balanced in both directions – art and devotion." That may owe something to the personality of the British Museum's director, Neil MacGregor, a Roman Catholic with a long-held interest in religious art. [link] Treasures of Heaven, British Museum, London WC1 to 9 October