In making his collection Sir Thomas followed his own interests and every work in it represents the personal taste of its owner, be the subject sacred or secular. As most of the works belong to the period of 1450 to 1520, the collection has great homogeneity and, in spite of the self-imposed limit of time, great diversity of subjects and techniques. No picture has been admitted merely because of size or with the intention of filling a certain space, but each has been selected for its pigmentary quality and with the determination to exclude anything that falls short of a high standard of perfection.