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Medieval Paintings from Castle Acre Priory
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 January 2012
Extract
There is no need for me here to stress the extraordinary scarcity of surviving panel pictures of undoubted English origin dating from the fourteenth century, in spite of the fact that at the time they must have been produced in enormous quantities. All the greater is, in consequence, the importance which attaches to the notable examples which I have the honour of exhibiting and commenting upon to-night; and that I am able to do so is due, in the first instance, to the privilege extended to me by the owner of the panels, the Earl of Leicester, G.C.V.O., C.M.G., and H.M. Office of Works; while I owe a further and special debt of gratitude to Mr. F. J. E. Raby, C.B., F.S.A., through whose initiative my attention was first drawn to these panels.
The pictures in question (pl. xxix) have come down to us in very fragmentary condition, and are painted on thick boards, three in number, two of which join up satisfactorily enough for us to deduce that they originally formed part of one and the same composition, while the remaining panel, though evidently a unit belonging to the identical scheme, does not link up with the others. All three boards come from Castle Acre Priory, and were discovered there in recent years, though not all at the same time: the panel on the left of the two belonging together on 19th November 1930, and the two other boards on 25th August 1932. The room in which they were found was the outer parlour, underneath the prior's chapel, in the western range of the buildings: they were used as part of the panelling of the wall when this portion of the buildings was occupied as a dwelling-house. The painted side, in each case, was uppermost, clearly indicating that they had been discarded as decorative panels and re-used for structural purposes. The panel found in 1930 was built into the twelfth-century door in the west wall, and the two other boards into the window-head in the north wall.
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- Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1937
References
page 115 note 1 This was exhibited by Sir Charles Peers at the Society of Antiquaries, 3 December 1931; see Antiq. Journ. xii (1932), 209Google Scholar.
page 116 note 1 Catalogue of Seals … in the British Museum, i (1887), no. 2886Google Scholar.
page 117 note 1 In view of the irregular shape of the panels, the measurements here given can only approximately indicate the maximum length and width.
page 117 note 2 The presence of the stirrup makes it, I think, clear beyond doubt that the figure is riding this horse, in spite of the curious angle of the foot.
page 117 note 3 Sir Charles Peers's suggested interpretation of the scene on the right as an Annunciation was made (loc. cit.) at a time when only part of the figure of the woman was available. Now that we can see that she is accompanied by two children, it becomes abundantly clear that she cannot be meant for the Virgin Annunciate.
page 119 note 1 In this connexion it should perhaps be noted that the only instance of a Vision of St. Eustace occurring on a Norfolk painted screen is supplied by the fifteenth-century screen at Litcham, a few miles from Castle Acre (see the Eastern Evening News, 23rd January 1937). The scene occurs also on one of the fifteenth-century bosses in the cloisters of Norwich Cathedral (James, M. R., The Sculptured Bosses in the Cloisters of Norwich Cathedral, 1911, pl. xi, 1)Google Scholar.
page 120 note 1 Reproduced in Burlington Mag. lxiii (September 1933), 98, 101.
page 120 note 2 Reproduced in Borenius and Tristram, English Medieval Painting (Florence, 1926), pl. 45Google Scholar.
page 120 note 3 Reproduced in Borenius and Tristram, op. cit., pl. 26.
page 120 note 4 The wood of the panels being pinewood, the interesting technical point arises whether we here have authentic surviving examples of the bordos de Norwagia, to which reference is frequently made in English medieval records.