Dazzling collection of Old Masters and Renaissance jewellery is unveiled

One of the most magnificent private art collections in Europe, a treasure trove of 700 works acquired by a German diamond millionaire a century ago, goes on public display next week.

The collection of Sir Julius Wernher has been installed in an English Heritage house in Greenwich Park, south-east London, to evoke the splendour of his former home in Piccadilly, which has been demolished. From next Wednesday, visitors can see the largest and most opulent private holding of Renaissance jewellery in Britain, canvases by Old Masters such as Filippino Lippi and the works of classic English portrait painters Sir Joshua Reynolds and George Romney.

They have been lent to English Heritage for 125 years by the Wernher Foundation, ending fears the priceless collection would go abroad. Simon Thurley, chief executive of English Heritage, unveiled the first glimpse of the collection's new home yesterday. He said being able to unite the works with a house that had once enjoyed a splendour of its own was wonderful. Past residents of Ranger's House, built in 1700, include the politician the 4th Earl of Chesterfield and the Duchess of Brunswick, sister of George III.

Dr Thurley said: "At English Heritage, we take on buildings that need a home. What we've managed to do here is put together a great house without a collection with a great collection without a house."

Sir Julius Wernher built his fortune on the diamond and gold mines of South Africa and began collecting art after he married Alice Sedgwick Mank-iewicz, a society beauty known as Birdie, in 1888.

The works were kept in Bath House, Piccadilly, where contemporary accounts report revelries among its graceful gold and crystal decorations, with the novelty of electric lighting "to set off every object in the room to brilliant advantage".

Bath House was demolished in 1960 and its contents held at another Wernher home, Luton Hoo, the country house seen in the film Four Weddings and a Funeral. Luton Hoo was open to the public for years but many of the treasures going on display were never shown there and they have been hidden away in storage for the past five years.

Dr Thurley said English Heritage curators had trawled the archives to recreate a sense of how Sir Julius and his wife enjoyed and displayed their treasures. The millionaire liked to juxtapose different types of objects instead of grouping them together by type or age as would happen in a museum.