Posted on 05/19/2005 10:02:32 AM PDT by siunevada
Neglected for centuries, England’s oldest altarpiece has been restored to its former glory and today goes on display in the National Gallery.
The Westminster Retable, an ornately-decorated thirteenth century panel painting, has been painstakingly repaired in a twenty-year project.
The Retable is divided into five panels depicting biblical figures, including an image of Christ holding a miniature representation of the earth.
It is considered one of the most important northern European panel paintings of its time.
Henry III gave it to Westminster Abbey at the end of his reign after he had overseen the church’s reconstruction in the French Gothic style.
The piece would have been at the back of the altar facing away from the congregation so few but the priest officiating at mass would have seen it.
It was removed from the altar at Westminster Abbey in the seventeenth century before being rediscovered in the 1980s.
Uncared-for for hundreds of years, it was once even placed in a side chapel and turned into a cupboard.
Further damage was caused when wax effigies of Elizabeth I and Prime Minister William Pitt were added to it.
It was fortunate to have survived the Reformation, when churches and monasteries were desecrated following the break with the Roman Catholic Church.
The Retable has spent 20 years being patched up by specialists in metal and glass work and wood-panel painting at the Hamilton Kerr Institute in Cambridge.
Restoration work on the piece, which is to return to Westminster Abbey later this year, was supported by the Getty Foundation and the Heritage Lottery Fund.
The National Gallery:
18 May - 4 September 2005 Lower Floor Gallery B Admission free
The 'Westminster Retable' is widely recognised as the most important Gothic panel painting produced in the Anglo-French milieu in the late 13th century.
Originally, it may have functioned as the high altarpiece of Westminster Abbey, produced under the patronage of Henry III or Edward I.
After the Dissolution of the Abbey it served as part of a cupboard for the display of the royal funeral waxworks and only came to notice in 1725.
Although damaged in the post-medieval period, enough survives of its extraordinarily refined and elegant paintings to stress its central place in the history of European art at this time. The painting illustrates Christ's miracles, his nature as Saviour of the World, and Saint Peter's witness to him.
Wow, you art-types are good at spotting that stuff. .
Please take me off the ping list. 27 in two and a half days is far more than I expected. Thanks.
For me, it has nothing to do with being an "art-tpye", for I always struggled with art appreciation classes. Reading the mediations of others has helped me to appreciate Icons, many of which contain strong albeit subtle geometric elements.
In the Rublev Icon, often called "The Old Testament Trinity" there is an apparent conversation between the divine beings. A small chalice on the table, containing the head of the sacrificed calf given by Abraham to the angelic visitor is thus the chalice within the chalice.
One of the messages of this Icon is that God through the Sacrament of the Eucharist is inviting us "to table"; that is, to become a part of the Divine conversation. This invitation is possible only through the sacrifice of the Son, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.
No problem. It's usually not that heavy though.
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