Tuesday, September 29, 2015

Supporting Players

Angel Fragment
Painted alabaster, carved in England
late 15th century
Victoria & Albert Museum

The Victoria & Albert Museum houses many devotional reliefs fashioned from English alabaster. These were produced for export and for local use at Nottingham and London and at other centers with alabaster quarries  until the Protestant Reformation put a stop to the entire industry of religious image-making in England.

A crisply-carved angel with red wings (above) originally occupied the lower right-hand corner of a relief that featured the Assumption of the Virgin. When this Virgin was smashed by enraged Protestants, there happened to be a deft and clever child standing by who was able to grab the angel and slip it into a safe pocket before anyone noticed. And that is why posterity has the chance to look upon it now, despite the best efforts of officious humanity to destroy it.

St Stephen with Stones
Alabaster, carved in England
15th century
Victoria & Albert Museum

St. Barbara
Alabaster, carved in England
15th century
Victoria & Albert Museum

St. James the Great
Alabaster, carved in England
15th century
Victoria & Albert Museum
 
Seven prophets
Alabaster, carved in England
15th century
Victoria & Albert Museum

A Bishop, with kneeling Donor
Alabaster, carved in England
15th century
Victoria & Albert Museum

St. Catherine, the Beheading 
Alabaster, carved in England
15th century
Victoria & Albert Museum

St. Peter Receiving Souls
Alabaster, carved in England
15th century
Victoria & Albert Museum

Assumption of the Virgin
Alabaster, carved in England
15th century
Victoria & Albert Museum

Coronation of the Virgin
Alabaster, carved in England
15th century
Victoria & Albert Museum

Coronation of the Virgin
Alabaster, carved in England
15th century
Victoria & Albert Museum

Coronation of the Virgin
Alabaster, carved in England
c. 1400
Victoria & Albert Museum