Altar frontal
Category
Textiles
Date
1500 - 1600
Materials
Linen, Wool
Measurements
660 x 1994 mm
Order this imageCollection
Cotehele, Cornwall
NT 348391
Summary
Altar frontal on black woollen background, applied with eight figures of saints embroidered in metallic thread, surmounting the Edgcumbe and Durnford coat-of-arms. Figures identified by Dr. Joanna Mattingly, with the caveat that we should check with the Victoria and Albert Museum. Left to right- "St Roche (if pointing at plague sores on leg. Posture doesn't look right for St James the Great and his hat would be larger if James); St Anthony - Tau cross, hermit costume, pig - definite; St Erasmus - if windlass?- martyrdom by having intestines wound round a windlass; St Francis - showing off his stigmata (ie replica wounds of Christ) - medieval images often show ribbons of blood, none of that quaint preaching to the birds stuff here. The knotted belt is clearly 20C; St John the Baptist holding Agnus Dei (a lamb on a book representing Jesus); St Michael slaying the dragon. Michael was an archangel; St Sebastian tied to a stake and shot through with arrows; Finally the Old Testament prophet Jeremiah. Looks a bit later in date and 16C? This would be from another item. On Cornish and Devon rood screens Old Testament prophets sometimes alternate with Christ's disciples (the theme of your purple/red dorsal) e.g. Budock church near Falmouth. My hunch is that there may have been an altar cloth or dorsal (a portable reredos/altar back) with Old Testament prophets, too."