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Notes on some English Alabaster Carvings

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 January 2012

W. L. Hildburgh
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Extract

The following notes consist of brief accounts of, and comments upon, some examples of English alabaster work, most of which have been exhibited before the Society at different times and are at present (1924) on loan at the Victoria and Albert Museum, South Kensington.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Antiquaries Journal , Volume 4 , Issue 4 , October 1924 , pp. 374 - 381
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1924

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References

page 374 note 1 Cf. Bedford, R. P., ‘An English Set of the Twelve Apostles in Alabaster’, in Burlington Mag., xlii (1923), 130seqqGoogle Scholar.

page 374 note 2 In ‘Some Examples of English Alabaster Tables in France’, in Archaeol. Journ., lxvii (1910)Google Scholar, pls. v, vi. Reproduced in Trans. Hist. Soc, Lancs, and Ches., 1920, opposite p. 55.

page 374 note 3 The six of that set are SS. James the Greater, Matthew, John, Matthias, Thomas, and Simon; cf. Bedford, op. cit., 133.

page 375 note 1 Cf. Bedford, , op. cit., 134Google Scholar.

page 375 note 2 John, vi, 5, 7.

page 375 note 3 On this, see Bedford, R. P., St. James the Less: a study in Christian iconography, London (Gryphon Club), 1911Google Scholar.

page 375 note 4 Ant. Journ., i (1911), 217Google Scholarseq., 230 (with fig. 4). Cf. also Bedford, , ‘Twelve Apostles’, 134Google Scholar.

page 375 note 5 Bond, F., Dedications of English Churches, Oxford, 1914, 134, 136Google Scholar.

page 375 note 6 Cf. Bedford, , op. cit., 133Google Scholar.

page 376 note 1 For much concerning the medieval Spanish representations of St. James as a pilgrim, and the use of the pecten shells, see Osma's, G. J. deAzabaches compostelanos, Madrid, 1916, 33–64Google Scholar, and especially 34, footnote 1.

page 376 note 2 Cf. Proc. Soc. Ant. xxxii, 121 seq., and Ant. Journ., iii, 25 seq.

page 376 note 3 Cf. Nelson, , ‘Some further Examples of English Medieval Alabaster Tables‘, in Archaeol. Journ., lxxiv, 117Google Scholar, and pi. xi; Prior, and Gardner, , Medieval Figure-Sculpture in England, Cambridge, 1912, fig. 570 bGoogle Scholar.

page 376 note 4 For the marks on the backs of some English alabasters, see Maclagan, E., Burlington Mag., xxxvi, 64Google Scholarseq. Cf., also, ibid., 54; and Ant. Journ., i, 229, and iii, 26.

page 377 note 1 Shown in the Catalogue of the Society's Exhibition of English Alabaster Work, fig. 3; and by Prior and Gardner, op. cit., fig. 561.

page 377 note 2 Figured by Prior and Gardner, op. cit., 359. Compare, also, a wooden image of about 1400, figured in ibid., p. 9; and, further, ibid., p. 59.

page 377 note 3 I have seen the fragment of another table showing Christ upon the ass in private hands in Southern France. Some examples of the occurrence of the scene otherwise in English sculpture are cited by Prior and Gardner, op. cit., 59.

page 377 note 4 A similar treatment may be seen on the fragment of a table shown in fig. 13, on the table of fig. 16, and—in the case of a statue—on the Virgin Mary of fig. 10.

page 378 note 1 Matt, xxi, 8.

page 378 note 2 Cf. Smith's, E. BaldwinEarly Christian Iconography, Princeton, 1918, 123Google Scholarseqq., for some examples; Cabrol's Dict, d'archéologie chrétienne, s.v. ‘Âne’, figs. 603, 604, 605; Mrs. Jameson's, Hist, of our Lord, iiGoogle Scholar, s.v. ‘Entry into Jerusalem’; etc.

page 378 note 3 This figure may have originated as a representation of persons seeking the branches to cast in the way, or of boys who wished to see the Lord pass by; in almost all the early examples the beardless little figure (or, sometimes, two figures, cf. Smith, Baldwin, op. cit., fig. 118Google Scholar; Millet, G., Iconographie de l'Évangile, Paris, 1916, figs. 244, 249Google Scholar) in the tree resembles a boy rather than a man. However, on one of the ivory panels from the sixth-century chair of Bishop Maximian there is a small bearded figure, with widespread arms, standing in a tree while Jesus passes by on an ass, indicating that certainly at the period that this panel (figured by Venturi, A., Storia dell' arte italiana, i, Milan, 1901, fig. 302Google Scholar) was made the person in the tree was at least sometimes meant for Zacchaeus, who, ‘little of stature… climbed up into a sycomore tree’ (Luke, xix, 3, 4) when Jesus passed through Jericho. The medieval artist, who frequently combined in one scene two separate episodes, did so when he transported Zacchaeus to the ‘Entry’ scene, for (he tree episode is described as occurring before the ass was obtained for Jesus. In the English mystery-plays we find the same combination of Zacchaeus with the Entry into Jerusalem. In the York Skynners’ Play, ‘The entry into Jerusalem upon the ass’, we find, in Scene III, ‘Bethphage, and on the road to Jerusalem’, Zacchaeus as a speaking character, ascending into a sycomore-tree and being addressed by Jesus (cf. Smith's, Lucy ToulminYork Plays, Oxford, 188 f, pp. xxiii, 214Google Scholar; the book of these plays seems to have been written in the first quarter of the fifteenth century). In view of the much earlier depicting of Zacchaeus in representations of the ‘Entry’, that play would—unless it had been inspired by some confused tradition—seem in the matter of Zacchaeus to have been influenced by art instead of having, as has been assumed correspondingly for certain other mysteries, itself influenced sculptural or painted representations of a particular detail (cf. E. Male, ‘Le renouvellement de l'art par les “Mystères”’, in Gaz. des Beaux-Arts, vol. xxxi, 1904; ibid., ‘Les rois mages et le drame liturgique’, in ibid., vol. iv, 1910, 261 seqq.). There is, consequently, no reason to suppose that, in this case, this particular detail was—as migh have been thought, and as seems actually to have been the case in connexion with other subjects sculptured in alabaster—due to the influence of the mystery-plays.

page 379 note 1 Cf. Hazlitt, W. C., Brand's Popular Antiquities, London, 1870, i, 71seqqGoogle Scholar.

page 379 note 2 Cf. the edition of about if 10, fol. xxvi v.; and Wynkyn de Worde's edition of 1528, fol xxvii v. Erbe's edition (Early English Text Soc, 1905) of a manuscript version (Bodleian MS. Gough Eccl. Top. 4) of the first half of the fifteenth century strongly suggests (cf. p. 115) that branches of palm were strewn, together with other branches, in the way, but does not make the matter as clear as do the printed versions cited above.

page 379 note 3 Cf. Proc. Soc. Ant. 2 S. xxix, 82 seq.

page 379 note 4 Cf. Prior and Gardner, op. cit., fig. 581; Cat. cit., pl. xxiv and p. 68.

page 380 note 1 Or figs. 10, 15, and 16 of Cat. cit.

page 380 note 2 A pivot in the line of the basal shaft, either above or below the -shaped portion, would have been useless for this purpose.

page 380 note 3 Cf. Papini, R., in ‘Polittici d'Alabastro’, in L'Arte, xiii (1910), 205Google Scholar.

page 381 note 1 Cf. Nelson, , Archaeol. Journ., 1913, 136 and pl. vGoogle Scholar; it replaces the wavy line of ‘clouds’ usual in Assumption tables.

page 381 note 2 Cf. Prior, and Gardner, , op. cit., figs. 561, 579Google Scholar.

page 381 note 3 For a few examples, see Prior, and Gardner, , op. cit., figs. 561, 288, 399Google Scholar.

page 381 note 4 Cf. Cat. cit., nos. 53, 54. 58, 59, and fig. 15; Prior, and Gardner, , op. cit., figs. 560, 564, 536, 579Google Scholar; Nelson, , Archaeol. Journ., 1913, pl. vGoogle Scholar; Maclagan, , op. cit., pl. iGoogle Scholar.