This landmark exhibition unravels the lost history of one of Horace Walpole’s most talked-about objects: a sixteenth-century Ottoman dagger he believed once belonged to Henry VIII. Richly decorated and recorded in eighteenth-century drawings, the dagger vanished after Walpole’s famed 1842 Strawberry Hill Sale, only to reappear in the hands of Victorian actor-manager Charles Kean, who used it on stage in his historically accurate Shakespeare productions. The exhibition traces the object’s journey across courts, collections and theatres, revealing how Tudor diplomacy, Ottoman craftsmanship and Gothic imagination became intertwined.

Visitors will encounter two near-identical jewelled daggers—loaned by the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna and the Portland Collection at Welbeck Abbey—displayed together for the first time. Through conservation findings, archival records and newly commissioned research, the exhibition explores how these weapons circulated as diplomatic gifts, how the Ottomans shaped European taste, and how Walpole and the Victorians reinterpreted objects to tell stories about power, history and identity.

Entry included with general admission. A fully illustrated exhibition catalogue is available. Details: strawberryhillhouse.org.uk/lost-dagger

Strawberry Hill After Dark: Walpole, Wolsey and the World Beyond