Sleeping Beauty?

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"Here is an English counterpart to the illusionism which occurs at the same time in Italian painting and German sculpture."
Nikolaus Pevsner (1902-1983), architectural historian

In his book, England's Thousand Best Churches, the author, Simon Jenkins, says of this tomb in the church of St Bartholomew, Much Marcle, Herefordshire, "The effigy might be the original for Sleeping Beauty." It isn't, and he knows that it isn't, but such is the character, delicacy and beauty of this fourteenth century figure sculpture, that this would certainly be the one to emulate for that purpose. The quotation from Nikolaus Pevsner at the head of this piece puts the sculpture into a European context, and at the same time draws our attention to the remarkable - for its time - realism of the figure and its clothing.

Blanche Mortimer was Lady Grandison, the wife of Sir Peter Grandison, and the daughter of Roger Mortimer, 1st Earl of March. She died childless, three years before her husband. There is probably no attempt at a likeness in the sculpture of her face, but her clothing, rosary, head dress, and the fall of her gown over the edge of the tomb, are all done with the intention of reproducing the illusion of reality. The tomb would have been painted when new, and the illusion would have been even stronger.

There are many who consider this tomb to be one of England's best from the period. It sits in a church that boasts other fine effigies, including one from the same period as this piece, carved from oak. The Kyrle Chapel has a sumptuously carved tomb from the seventeenth century of Sir John Kyrle and his wife that I made the subject of one of my first blog posts in January 2006.

photographs and text (c) T. Boughen

Main Photo
Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 45mm
F No: f7.1
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ISO: 3200
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A Victorian memorial

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Memorials interest me for their design and what they say about the time in which they were erected. I also look at them with an eye to what they say about the person commemorated, and about those who had it made - sometimes the same person, often not.

I don't know who had the tomb in today's photograph erected in the modest chapel at Oxburgh Hall in Norfolk, but it dominates it, an enormous altarpiece with elaborate sixteenth century Flemish carving notwithstanding. This is partly because it is pretty much the first thing you see when you pass through the main entrance. The simple brick-built, rectangular church with an apsidal end was built in 1836 after the restrictions on worship by Catholics had been lifted in Britain. The stone-clad, projecting chapel that houses the tomb and effigy was built on to the existing structure after the death of the person who is commemorated in it, so I imagine it is a tribute from his family, rather than a self-aggrandising monument. The light from the nearby windows illuminates the white Carrara marble effigy in a way that makes it seem quite ethereal, almost as though it is floating on the ornate alabaster chest below.

I tried a few different approaches to photographing the tomb, positioning myself at an angle near the feet, shooting over the surrounding rails, and concentrating on the upper body of the effigy. However, I preferred this one that uses the ornamental metalwork and wooden bench ends as a pierced silhouette through which the brighter tomb is viewed.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Lumix LX3
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 10.2mm (48mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f4
Shutter Speed: 1/20
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Shades of Pompeii and Henry Moore

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I see a lot of tomb effigies on my visits to England's churches. The earliest are coffin-shaped slabs dating from the twelfth century, and have cross-shaped patterns, swords or low relief figures or part-figures. Effigies become more numerous and more elaborate in subsequent years, right up to the eighteenth century when they can have standing figures in contemporary or classical dress that are life-size or larger. The Victorians were also capable of grandiose monuments with detailed figures, frequently exuding nobility, often deeply sentimental. However, they tended to favour smaller scale wall monuments - plaques with urns, relief figures, palms, doves or Greek sarcophagi. Effigies dating from the twentieth century are extremely rare.

The remaining medieval effigies are often remarkable in terms of the detail that they retain: some look like they were cut yesterday. Alabaster and other kinds of "sculptural" stone is capable of expressing the intricacies of faces, armour, mail, fabric and hair, and sculptors took advantage of this in their work. Of course, many effigies bear the marks of time - vandalism, neglect, iconoclasts, restorers, and simple accidents have all taken their toll on church monuments. Many have succumbed to weather and water when a church roof has leaked or has vanished when the church fell in to a period of disuse. Others have sometimes suffered a spell in the churchyard, removed from their original place in the chancel or nave by zealous Protestants. Those shown in today's photograph, examples that date from 1287 and 1370, must have had some such experience, so smooth are they worn. I came across them in the church of St Michael the Archangel, Laxton, in Nottinghamshire. They represent two members of the de Everingham family. Other effigies from this local dynasty (in  much better condition) can also be seen in the church.

Why did I pass by the better monuments to photograph this battered pair? I think it was because they reminded of the petrified bodies revealed in the excavations of Pompeii, and more particularly the drawings and sculptures of Henry Moore, especially those that he did based on people sheltering in the London Underground during the Blitz of WW2. The smooth undulations, softly modelled by the light from nearby windows echoed, for me, the reclining and supine, abstracted bodies of this early work from which he expanded into his less figurative mature phase.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Lumix LX3
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 5.1mm (24mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f2
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ISO: 160
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Defaced and refaced

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It is all too easy to imagine the zealots of the English Reformation rampaging through our churches, smashing the "idolatrous" medieval stained glass windows, flinging the statues of saints from their niches, scraping and scoring the wall paintings and knocking lumps off the effigies that decorated the tombs of the well-to-do. The fervour that gripped many following the split with Rome, and particularly during the Puritan period of the seventeenth century Civil War, led to many such crimes against art, history, culture, and yes, religion.

Visit a few English churches and you can't help but notice tomb effigies with missing noses, with hands broken off at the wrists, snapped swords and headless mourning angels. The parts that projected from the tombs were the easiest to destroy, and the evidence of the depredations of these early Protestants remains today. Interestingly it wasn't all tombs, or all areas that suffered in this way: many medieval masterpieces remain largely untouched by either religious fanaticism, casual vandalism or the accidents of time. In some churches subsequent generations took it upon themselves to restore damaged tombs, with varying degrees of success. In the church at Ashbourne, Derbyshire, I recall seeing alabaster effigies with noses replaced by stone that is a fair match in terms of colour, but which is much more translucent than the original material. Consequently the noses of the deceased glow when the sun shines upon them from a certain angle, and their pious countenances become comic.

Today's photograph shows an early fourteenth century alabaster tomb effigy of a lady flanked by mourning angels. It is in the church of St Mary at Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire. The identity of the person is unknown. However, at some point in the past - probably the nineteenth century - the church took the decision to restore the tomb. They did quite a good job in terms of making it convincingly whole, though to what extent it draws upon the original I can't be sure. If you look carefully you can see the edges of the joins where the replacement pieces were inserted. I took my photograph in "challenging" lighting, but managed to hand-hold this shot, the best of the series that I captured. Some post-processing has been done to minimise the distracting background and also to emphasise the main areas of interest of the effigy.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 11mm (22mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/20 seconds
ISO: 400
Exposure Compensation: -0.7 EV
Image Stabilisation: On