XVII.—On the Wall-Paintings in All Saints' Church, Friskney, Lincolnshire

Extract

The discovery of additional subjects since I last had the honour to exhibit tracings of the Friskney wall-paintings has shown me that there was a general purpose of doctrinal teaching in the whole series, the recognition of which purpose gives a clue to the interpretation of each picture. The intention was, as I believe, to represent by a succession of subjects, progressively from west to east, the presence of Christ. First, in the flesh, “His earthly ministry”; second, in the “host”; the former in the series on the north, the latter on the south clerestory. The tracings before us are from the latter. They are a continuation (going from west to east) of the two subjects recorded in Vol. XLVIII. of Archaeologia, viz., The Gathering of the Manna, and The Last Supper. I have numbered them in the order in which they stand in the church, occupying the three spandrels east of that which contains the picture of The Last Supper, i.e. on the clerestory wall above the three easternmost bays of the south arcade.