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The Sparham Corpse Panels: Unique Revelations of Death from Late Fifteenth-Century England

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 March 2010

Julian Luxford
Julian Luxford*
Affiliation:
Julian Luxford, FSA, School of Art History, University of St Andrews, 79 North Street, St Andrews KY16 9AL, UK. E-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

Two late fifteenth-century rood-screen panels in Sparham church, near Norwich, display images of corpses that are apparently unique in surviving medieval art. One is painted with two standing corpses dressed in finery, the other with a corpse arising from a tomb within a church, with a font to one side. Both panels are notable for their surviving inscriptions, and others now lost. Together, these works constitute one of the most significant English contributions to the genre of death imagery, yet their uniqueness and artistic importance has not been recognized to date. Using a range of medieval and antiquarian sources, this article aims to provide a comprehensive account of the Sparham panels’ physical and historical context, iconography and meaning. The strong possibility that they functioned as a ‘surrogate sepulchral monument’ is discussed at the end of the paper.

Résumé

Deux panneaux de jubé de la fin du quinzième siècle dans l’église de Sparham, près de Norwich, montrent des images de cadavres, lesquelles sont apparemment uniques dans le contexte de l’art médiéval survivant encore. L’un des deux dépeint deux cadavres se tenant debout, habillés de beaux vêtements, l’autre montre un cadavre se levant d’une tombe à l’intérieur d’une église, avec des fonts baptismaux d’un côté. Les deux panneaux sont remarquables pour leurs inscriptions restant encore et pour d’autres maintenant perdues. Ensemble, ces œuvres constituent l’une des plus importantes contributions anglaises au genre artistique de la représentation de la mort, mais néanmoins leur caractère unique et leur importance artistique n’ont pas encore été reconnus à ce jour. Cette communication, qui se sert de diverses sources médiévales et antiquaires, a pour but de fournir un compte-rendu complet du contexte matériel et historique des panneaux de Sparham, de leur iconographie et de leur signification. Il est fort possible qu’ils servaient de monument sépulcral de substitution, et on traite de cette possibilité à la fin de la communication.

Zusammenfassung

Zwei Lettner aus dem späten fünfzehnten Jahrhundert zeigen Bilder von Leichnamen, die scheinbar einzigartig in der bekannten mittelalterlichen Kunst sind. Einer hat ein Bildnis von zwei geschmückten, stehenden Leichnamen, der andere von einem Leichnam, der aus einer Kirchengruft aufersteht, mit einem Taufbecken zur Seite. Beide Panele sind wegen ihrer Inschriften bemerkenswert, die anderen sind inzwischen verloren gegangen. Beide Werke bilden die wichtigsten englischen Beiträge zum Genre der bildlichen Darstellung von Toten, deren Einzigartigkeit und künstlerische Bedeutung bisher nicht erkannt wurde. Mit Hilfe von verschiedenen mittelalterlichen und antiquarischen Quellen hat dieser Artikel zum Ziel, eine ausführliche Beschreibung des physischen und geschichtlichen Zusammenhangs, der Iconographie und der Bedeutung der Lettner von Sparham zu erstellen. Die starke Warscheinlichkeit, daß sie als ‘Ersatz für ein Grabdenkmal’ fungieren, wird am Ende des Artikel diskutiert.

Type
Articles
Information
The Antiquaries Journal , Volume 90 , September 2010 , pp. 299 - 340
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 2010

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