The Furnishing of Royal Closets and the Use of Small Devotional Images in the Reign of Richard II: The Setting of the Wilton Diptych Reconsidered

Summary

Today, the Wilton Diptych (Plates 1, 2) is a lone survivor in England of a class of portable devotional paintings that once formed a normal part of royal worship. During the late fourteenth century, Richard II, like other contemporary rulers, led a peripatetic existence, travelling between his various residences as well as making specific journeys for military campaigns or for pilgrimages. As he progressed, his furnishings would have preceded him, including chapel ornaments, comprising vestments, plate, books and, in all likelihood, some portable devotional images. Theories surrounding the intended purpose and location of theWilton Diptych have in the past included the suggestions that it could have been the focus of a secret brotherhood or even a posthumous image created in the reign of Henry IV. Currently, the most widely accepted view seems to be that this painting was created for Richard II’s personal devotions, for use in his private oratories. This article will explore the importance of the private oratory or ‘closet’ as a setting for small devotional images, and will reconsider the chapel of St Mary of the Pew at Westminster Abbey as one of several possible settings for the Wilton Diptych.

From an entry in Henry III’s accounts published by Colvin, it is evident that the Wilton Diptych was not the first small painted diptych to be owned by an English monarch. In 1235, a painting was purchased for Henry III’s chapel at Guildford at a cost of just under 10s, described as ‘una parva tabula . . . et alia parva tabula eidem respondenti . . . Et eisdem tabulis coniungendis ita quod claudi et aperiri possint’ (‘a small panel, and another small panel corresponding to it, and those panels joined in such a way that they can be closed and opened’). The panels were painted with the Crucifixion with Mary and John on one side and, on the opposite panel, Our Lord in Majesty and the four Evangelists. During his long reign, Henry III commissioned several panel paintings, including, in 1258, another diptych, of unspecified size, for the Lady Chapel in Westminster Abbey.