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Date: |
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Description: | LeadPortable Shrine or Calvary. Cast rectangular panel with a framed and recessed setting in architectural style,comprising a Perpendicular arch flanked by columns supporting a beaded canopy, with further vertical tracery behind. Two sub-rectangular spaces above and behind the canopy suggest further vertical tracery. This arrangement probably formed a setting for small figures modelled in three-quarter or full relief. Relict traces from behind the central figure suggest it to have been Christ crucified. What space remained housed a single figure on either side; probably the Virgin Mary and St John the Evangelist. The door of a portable diptych or triptych is presented by Michael Mitchiner (1986, Medieval Pilgrim and Secular Badges, Hawkins Publications, London, page 125, no. 316)Below this composition and its frame, a trapezoidal lug projects; it is now in the same plane but this may be the result of recent damage. The back of the piece is bevelled on three sides -not where the lug projects - with a rectangular tab projecting from its centre, now folded back. This projected from the centre of a low relief arrangement of diagonal and vertical lines; the religious context suggests this could have been a Chi-Rho.The juxtaposition of figures in an architectural setting reflects the artistic conventions of diptych or triptych painting - the narrative requires three characters while the window-like spaces behind the canopy suggest bipartite division. It recalls the 15th-century genre of the sacra conversazione, in which a primary figure or group would be flanked by subsidiary saints. In Renaissance art, the detail of a gilded frame would recur in painted surfaces, creating an illusion of three dimensional space. In a northern idiom, framing would be by the lines of a Gothic architectural setting. The piece would be significant in the context of personal devotion, an important aspect of Catholic observance between the Black Death and the Reformation, but its material places this object in a humble social milieu. It may have been a pilgrim souvenir: an architectural setting could suggest Walsingham, where the Marian cult focussed on a replica of the Virgin's house. There are twin indentations on one side edge, probably inflicted in antiquity, with a recent crease between the main panel and the lug below it. Suggested date: Late Medieval, 1400-1500.Height: 81.8mm, Width: 41.5mm, Thickness (clear of lug): 10.3mm, Weight: 156.42gms.
Original Image | Publisher: | http://finds.org.uk | Source: | Portable Antiquities | Identifier: | http://finds.org.uk/database/artefacts/r... | Go to resource |
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