Show me:
and
Clear all filters

  • 33 items
  • 25 items Explore
  • 89 items
  • 3,541 items Explore
  • 97 items Explore
  • 9 items
  • 4 items
  • 220 items
  • 13,514 items Explore
  • 211 items Explore
  • 1,225 items Explore
  • 8,754 items Explore
  • 5,061 items Explore
  • 62 items Explore
  • 165 items Explore
  • 13,005 items Explore
  • 13,621 items Explore
  • 4,802 items Explore
  • 1 items
  • 5 items
  • 149 items Explore
  • 2,008 items Explore
  • 4,756 items Explore
  • 438 items Explore
  • 266 items
  • 103 items Explore
  • 19,977 items Explore
  • 34 items Explore
  • 1,911 items Explore
  • 1,083 items Explore
  • 5 items
  • 2,156 items Explore
  • 2 items
  • 455 items Explore
  • 920 items Explore
  • 1 items Explore
  • 5 items
  • 7 items
  • 20,357 items Explore
  • 800 items Explore
  • 19 items
  • 73 items Explore
  • 33 items
  • 793 items
  • 20 items
  • 4 items
  • 26 items
  • 61 items
  • 28 items
  • 319 items Explore
  • 6 items
  • 44 items Explore
  • 1 items
  • 2 items
  • 2 items
  • 9 items
  • 121 items Explore
  • 119 items
  • 1 items
  • 926 items Explore
  • 724 items
  • 95 items
  • 27 items
  • 107 items
  • 37,713 items Explore
  • 1 items
  • 3,881 items Explore
  • 1,533 items Explore
  • 403 items
  • 125 items Explore
  • 10,728 items Explore
  • 9,684 items Explore
  • 4 items
  • 1 items
  • 38 items
  • 3 items
  • 4 items
  • 6,779 items Explore
  • 2 items
  • 7,364 items Explore
  • 4,741 items Explore
  • 1,911 items Explore
  • 1,195 items Explore
  • 23,791 items Explore
  • 3,662 items Explore
  • 17 items
  • 5 items
  • 334 items
  • 1 items
  • 1 items
  • 3,323 items Explore
  • 23 items Explore
  • 374 items Explore
  • 796 items Explore
  • 1,095 items Explore
  • 514 items Explore
  • 1,146 items Explore
  • 89 items
  • 125 items Explore
  • 6,954 items Explore
  • 76 items
  • 108 items
  • 4 items
  • 2 items
  • 63 items
  • 2 items
  • 2,935 items Explore
  • 1,529 items Explore
  • 203 items
  • 90 items
  • 22,242 items Explore
  • 1,338 items Explore
  • 138 items
  • 848 items Explore
  • 32 items
  • 1 items
  • 122 items Explore
  • 40 items
  • 20 items
  • 252 items
  • 313 items
  • 687 items Explore
  • 343 items Explore
  • 2,429 items
  • 2,545 items
  • 3 items
  • 1 items
  • 1 items
  • 4,393 items Explore
  • 40,354 items Explore
  • 1 items
  • 3,293 items Explore
  • 275 items Explore
  • 8,799 items Explore
  • 31 items
  • 25 items
  • 304 items Explore
  • 776 items Explore
  • 3 items
  • 65 items
  • 161 items
  • 50 items
  • 52 items
  • 23,684 items Explore
  • 916 items
  • 66 items
  • 22,646 items Explore
  • 2 items
  • 2,336 items Explore
  • 1 items
  • 1,028 items Explore
  • 4 items
  • 759 items
  • 499 items
  • 4 items
  • 3,309 items Explore
  • 179 items
  • 59 items
  • 455 items Explore
  • 3 items
  • 21 items
  • 90 items Explore
  • 76 items
  • 281 items Explore
  • 1 items
  • 6 items
  • 128 items
  • 295 items
  • 447 items
  • 290 items
  • 1 items
  • 906 items Explore
  • 272 items Explore
  • 455 items
  • 11,295 items Explore
  • 755 items Explore
  • 6,028 items Explore
  • 8,295 items Explore
  • 27 items
  • 1 items
  • 5,976 items Explore
  • 4 items
  • 3,725 items Explore
  • 9,182 items Explore
  • 7,886 items Explore
  • 182 items
  • 19 items
  • 144 items
  • 7 items
  • 853 items Explore
  • 19 items
  • 8 items
  • 1,096 items Explore
  • 270 items
  • 1 items
  • 2,086 items
  • 3,543 items Explore
  • 695 items Explore
  • 18 items
  • 134 items
  • 6,743 items Explore
  • 95 items
  • 18,939 items Explore
  • 3,136 items Explore
  • 3 items
  • 7 items
  • 10,979 items Explore
  • 37 items
  • 2 items
  • 21,446 items Explore
  • 35 items
  • 13,291 items Explore
  • 3,462 items Explore
  • 5,641 items Explore
  • 33 items
  • 51,236 items Explore
  • 41 items
  • 646 items Explore
  • 417 items
  • 26,946 items Explore
  • 216 items
  • 3 items
  • 6 items
  • 1 items
  • 35 items
  • 27 items
  • 445 items Explore
  • 636 items
  • 217 items Explore
  • 13 items
  • 13,766 items Explore
  • 1,360 items Explore
  • 3 items
  • 10,260 items
  • 9 items
  • 10 items
  • 14 items
  • 25 items
  • 1 items
  • 4,536 items Explore
  • 913 items Explore
  • 1 items
  • 1 items
  • 318 items
  • 511 items Explore
  • 42 items
  • 2,291 items Explore
  • 1,664 items Explore
  • 15 items
  • 1,876 items Explore
  • 150 items
  • 81 items
  • 766 items Explore
  • 3,138 items Explore
  • 44 items
  • 17 items
  • 12 items
  • 10,668 items Explore
  • 23,687 items Explore
  • 1 items
  • 3 items
  • 1 items
  • 41 items
  • 1,374 items
  • 177 items Explore
  • 8 items
  • 92 items
  • 1 items
  • 13,586 items Explore
  • 3,583 items Explore
  • 2,903 items Explore
  • 4,521 items Explore
  • 22 items
  • 30 items
  • 6,910 items Explore
  • 4,841 items Explore
  • 2,300 items Explore
  • 2,978 items Explore
  • 2 items
  • 1,898 items Explore
  • 191 items
  • 223 items Explore
  • 466 items Explore
  • 6,118 items Explore
  • 8,729 items Explore
  • 1,860 items Explore
  • 3 items
  • 1 items
  • 5,943 items Explore
  • 3,354 items Explore
  • 11,130 items Explore
  • 1 items
  • 84 items
  • 11 items
  • 2,518 items Explore
  • 7 items
  • 24 items
  • 51 items
  • 6 items
  • 1 items
  • 4,290 items Explore
  • 611 items Explore
  • 72 items
  • 17 items
  • 155 items Explore
  • 1 items
  • 95 items Explore
  • 458 items
  • 996 items Explore
  • 3,556 items Explore
  • 4 items
  • 5 items
  • 2 items
  • 9,548 items Explore
  • 48 items Explore
  • 3 items
  • 7 items
  • 42 items
  • 3 items
  • 13,807 items Explore
  • 4 items
  • 1,162 items Explore
  • 92 items
  • 10,566 items Explore
  • 1,920 items
  • 18 items
  • 6,748 items Explore
  • 21 items
  • 12,949 items Explore
  • 1,418 items Explore
  • 8 items
  • 6,175 items Explore
  • 14,883 items Explore
  • 4 items
  • 1,667 items Explore
  • 181 items Explore
  • 4 items
  • 16 items
  • 5,686 items Explore
  • 12,284 items Explore
  • 48 items
  • 25 items
  • 2 items
  • 3 items
  • 7,192 items Explore
  • 357 items Explore
  • 13 items
  • 6 items
  • 103 items Explore
  • 7 items
  • 5 items
  • 485 items
  • 688 items Explore
  • 8,368 items Explore
  • 58 items
  • 7,347 items Explore
  • 5 items
  • 26 items
  • 4,614 items Explore
  • 428 items
  • 339 items Explore
  • 12,715 items Explore
  • 55 items
  • 20 items
  • 7 items
  • 4 items
  • 325 items Explore
  • 427 items
  • 458 items
  • 1 items
  • 3,694 items Explore
  • 27 items
  • 1,238 items Explore
  • 2,503 items Explore
  • 791 items Explore
  • 36 items
  • 1,139 items Explore
  • 97 items Explore
  • 24 items
  • 229 items Explore
  • 80,207 items Explore
  • 1 items
  • 3,136 items Explore
  • 2,871 items Explore
  • 25 items
  • 5,351 items Explore
  • 1,831 items Explore
  • 4 items
  • 17,515 items Explore
  • 4,930 items Explore
  • 1 items
  • 7 items
  • 622 items Explore
  • 85 items
  • 31 items
  • 1 items
  • 76 items
  • 29 items
  • 86 items
  • 3 items
  • 1,176 items Explore
  • 109 items
  • 805 items
  • 12,604 items Explore
  • 27 items
  • 13 items
  • 1,710 items Explore
  • 214 items
  • 17,037 items Explore
  • 85 items
  • 17 items
  • 1 items
  • 8 items
  • 324 items
  • 2 items
  • 626 items Explore
  • 1,596 items Explore
  • 8 items
  • 1,130 items Explore
  • 383 items
  • 1 items
  • 2 items
  • 353 items

Select a time period

Or choose a specific year

Clear all filters

Painted screen with St Edmund, an archbishop (possibly Thomas Becket), St Edward the Confessor and a mitred bishop

British (English) School

Category

Art / Oil paintings

Date

1300 - 1315

Materials

Oak with polychrome and gilding

Measurements

845 x 1095 mm

Place of origin

England

Order this image

Collection

Kingston Lacy Estate, Dorset

NT 1257255

Caption

Before the Reformation in religion brought about by the Tudor monarchs Henry VIII, Edward VI and Elizabeth I, England was a Catholic country loyal to Rome. Numerous medieval churches would have had spectacular painted or carved rood screens dividing the nave of the church from the chancel or choir. The painted screen shown here is an English survival from the 1300s and depicts saintly kings and clerics. It was probably an object of devotion and prayer for thousands of Christians over several centuries. The screen is rather damaged, and it is not known how it survived the Reformation or from which church it came. Most religious imagery was destroyed or whitewashed in the 16th century during state-sponsored removals and iconoclastic attacks. The screen appears to have been collected by the Bankes family of Kingston Lacy, Dorset, where it was found in the attic. It remains a remarkable legacy of English religious history.

Summary

Oak with polychrome and gilding, painted screen with St Edmund, an archbishop (possibly Thomas Becket), St Edward the Confessor and a mitred bishop, unidentified maker, English School, 1300-15. A painted oak rood screen depicting four enthroned figures, each enclosed by an arch with foliate carving and Gothic enrichment (finialled and crocketed arches, cinquefoil cusping). From left: St Edmund, seated, facing forwards, identified by an arrowhead; a mitred bishop (possibly Thomas Becket), seated, in three-quarter view, gesturing left to St Edmund, wearing a purple or red chasuble, white gloves and a ring, and identified by his pallium (a vestment reserved for archbishops); St Edward the Confessor, seated, in three-quarter view, holding up his attribute of a ring, gesturing right to the final figure, a mitred bishop wearing a red chasuble. A continuous groove on the reverse confirms that the four panels are an original group, which would have once formed part of a larger scheme (see Tracy 1997, appendix A).

Full description

This painted English oak rood screen is an extremely rare, if not unique, survival from the early fourteenth-century. Very little is known about its origins, but it probably originally made up the right-hand wing of a triptych altarpiece (Tracy 1997, p. 23). The screen depicts four male figures, enthroned and arranged as though in conversation. Two are crowned and two are mitred. The two kings carry attributes, an arrow and a ring, respectively associated with Edward the Confessor and Edmund the Martyr, the latter particularly favoured by English royal patrons. One of the two clerics is an archbishop, probably Thomas Becket whose cult at Canterbury was one of the most influential in Europe. There are no obvious clues as to the identity of the other bishop, who wears a red chasuble and mitre. The suggestion that it was made not for a church but for a private, possibly royal setting is supported by the high quality of the polychrome, carving and gilding, the elaborate gabled frame (painted to look like porphyry and stone), and the unprecedented juxtaposition of kings and ecclesiastics. How the screen came to Kingston Lacy is unknown, as there is little information related to its history other than a label on the reverse written in a late-eighteenth or early nineteenth-century hand. It reads ‘From the parish church of Heyford, Northamptonshire’. Possibly stuck on by an auction house cataloguer, the label is misleading as the date of the rood screen falls between recorded refurbishments of the church in 1260-70 and 1340. It may have been deposited there after the Reformation but, if this was the case, it is unusual that it is not mentioned in any antiquarian county history. The screen was found in the attic of Kingston Lacy, but its significance was largely overlooked as it was thought to be a Victorian copy. Its importance was first recognised in the late 1990s by the medievalist Dr Charles Tracy (see Tracy 1997). His belief in the authenticity of the screen led to scientific examination and a major conservation treatment. The results of dendrochronology (tree-ring dating) dated the oak panel to about 1300-15, the paint analysis identifying pigments including vermillion, red lead, haematite, yellow ochre and verdigris contemporary to that date range.

Provenance

Possibly acquired by William John Bankes (1786-1855), according to an unverified, late 18th - early 19th century inscription on reverse which states that the screen came 'From the parish church of Heyford Northamptonshire’; bequeathed by (Henry John) Ralph Bankes (1902 – 1981) to the National Trust, together with the estates of Corfe Castle and Kingston Lacy and its entire contents in 1981.

Credit line

Kingston Lacy, The Bankes Collection (National Trust)

Marks and inscriptions

Verso: From the parish church of Heyford Northamptonshire

Makers and roles

British (English) School, artist

References

Tracy 1997 Charles Tracy, 'An English painted screen at Kingston Lacy', Apollo, July 1997, pp.20-28 Bucklow, Marks and Wrapson 2017: Spike Bucklow, Richard Marks and Lucy Wrapson eds., The Art and Science of the Church Screen in Medieval Europe. Making, Meaning, Preserving, Woodbridge 2017

View more details