The Oxburgh Retable: Christ in Limbo (top); The Resurrection (middle); Pilgrims at an Altar begging the intercession of Saint James (bottom)
follower of Pieter Coecke van Aelst, the Elder (Aalst 1502 - Brussels 1550)
Category
Art / Oil paintings
Date
1520 - 1530
Materials
oil on panel
Order this imageCollection
Oxburgh Hall, Norfolk
NT 1209874.5
Summary
Composite altarpiece, right wing (outer), oil painting on panel, The Oxburgh Retable: Christ in Limbo; The Resurrection; Pilgrims at an Altar begging the intercession of Saint James, follower of Pieter Coecke van Aelst the elder (Aalst 1502 - Brussels 1550), 1520-30. He entered the Antwerp Guild of Painters in 1527. Made up of a carved triptych showing scenes of the Passion and from the life of St James of Compostella. Enclosed by painted wings which act as doors, resting on a carved and gilded altar-table and tabernacle. Of three elements - at the bottom, the altar table carved on the front with The Mocking of Christ, The Deposition and The Flagellation. In the middle, a semi-octagonal sacrament tabernacle, flanked by panels painted with scenes from the life of St Catherine. At the top, a retable or triptych, probably made in Antwerp in 1520-1530. The carved scenes depict, in the centre, The Crucifixion, flanked by The Road to Calvary and The Deposition. In the lower register are Pilate, and possibly Caiaphas. The painted wings show more scenes from the Passion story and from the life of St James of Compostela on the inside and on the outside the four Fathers of the Church. A wooden and metal armature has been installed by NT to ensure structural stability with the wings open. The tabernacle was originally topped by a tall pinnacled 'exposition throne' or aedicule set against red curtains, this was replaced in the 1860's by the retable. .
Provenance
Made for an unknown location; reputedly acquired by Sir Henry Bedingfeld, 6th Bt (1800-62) in Bruges, where his sister was a nun for nearly fifty years but possibly really obtained (like some of his furniture) by him from the Belgian woodcarver (responsible for the added figures?) and dealer, Malfait, to replace the upper part of the neo-Gothic tabernacle originally installed in the Chapel when it was built (1835-37); or even by Sir Henry Bedingfeld, 7th Bt (1830-1902), since the widow of the 8th Bt - yet another Sir Henry (1860-1941) - claimed that her husband remembered its arrival at King’s Lynn [which has caused Christa Grössinger (op.cit.infra, p.171) to say that it was bought in King’s Lynn in the 1860s - this seems the most probable, since it seems unlikely that the 6th Bt, who had only had the tabernacle made less than thirty years before his death, should have swept it away so soon; it is still visible in Matilda Bedingfeld’s watercolour of the interior of the Chapel, done shortly before her marriage to Captain Neville in 1855]; thence, by descent, in situ, until bought by the National Trust in 1982, with the aid of grants from the National Art Collections Fund, The National Heritage Memorial Fund, and the Victoria & Albert Museum-administered purchase support fund
Makers and roles
follower of Pieter Coecke van Aelst, the Elder (Aalst 1502 - Brussels 1550), artist
References
The Burlington Magazine, Kim Woods - Some C16 Antwerp carved wooden altarpieces in England, The Burlington Magazine March 1999 pp144-155., Apollo Annual Magazine , Ian McClure and Renate Woudhuyen - The Oxburgh Chapel Altarpiece, NT Historic Houses and Collections Apollo Annual Magazine 1994 pp20-23. The Oxburgh Altarpiece, John Maddison - The Oxburgh Altarpiece, NACF Annual Review 1984 pp145-6.