Panel Painting Painting of the Life of St. Ethelreda
Object number
LDSAL317
Artist/Designer/Maker
Pygot, Robert - Artist
Production date
Mid 15th century
Circa 1455
Circa 1455
Production place
Bury St Edmunds
Material
Oak
Oil Paint
Oil Paint
Technique
Oil on panel
Dimensions
height: 1340mm
width: 1245mm
height (Part 1): 1215mm
width (Part 1): 545mm
height (Part 2): 1220mm
width (Part 2): 525mm
width: 1245mm
height (Part 1): 1215mm
width (Part 1): 545mm
height (Part 2): 1220mm
width (Part 2): 525mm
Location
Burlington House - (on display)
Content description
1. The Marriage of Etheldreda to Ecgfrith (top-left)
Both Etheldreda and Ecgfrith are crowned and dressed in ermine-trimmed gowns. They stand before the bishop, holding each other by the right hand. To the Bishop's left, a bare-headed man holds a processional cross in one hand and an open book in the other. Behind Ecgfrith stands a young man who also wears ermine and cloth of gold, as well as an elaborate gilded collar decorated with a miniature crown and a distinctive motif resembling billowing clouds or waves. The gowns of the royal and noble men and women in this scene, as well those of the senior clergy, are of red, blue or gold cloth of gold, decorated with large motifs.
2. Etheldreda takes leave of her husband before retiring to the abbey of Coldingham (top-right)
Etheldreda – still dressed as the queen and wearing a crown decorated with gems and pearls – turns to take leave of her husband, King Ecgfrith. She is accompanied by two female companions, named in the Liber Eliensis as Sewenna and Sewara. The king wears a jewelled crown and a gilded collar composed of huge ornamental blossoms with red centres. Behind him are two bearded companions wearing turban-like helmets. Suspended from the king’s belt is one of the earliest depictions in English art of a money-purse with a metal frame. The gilded gesso background to this scene is stamped with a running scroll and berry-bunch motif.
3. Etheldreda building her convent (bottom-left)
Etheldreda – dressed as a nun but still wearing her crown and accompanied again by Sewenna and Sewara – instructs five masons as they work on the construction of a building, apparently an aisleless church with solid stone walls and rebated windows. In the top right-hand corner is a tower or gatehouse.
4. The translation of the saint's uncorrupted remains to a marble coffin (bottom right)
In this scene, the saint’s miraculously preserved body has been placed in a stone coffin. This is decorated with a series of recessed cinqfoils beneath a line of scrolling foliage within a cavetto moulding. At the head of the tomb, holding a crozier, is Etheldreda’s sister and successor, Abbess Seaxburgh. One of the nuns points at a red gash on the saint’s neck, the result of surgery to remove a tumour from her jaw before she died. Wilfrid, Bishop of York, raises his hands in wonder at the sight of the wound.
Both Etheldreda and Ecgfrith are crowned and dressed in ermine-trimmed gowns. They stand before the bishop, holding each other by the right hand. To the Bishop's left, a bare-headed man holds a processional cross in one hand and an open book in the other. Behind Ecgfrith stands a young man who also wears ermine and cloth of gold, as well as an elaborate gilded collar decorated with a miniature crown and a distinctive motif resembling billowing clouds or waves. The gowns of the royal and noble men and women in this scene, as well those of the senior clergy, are of red, blue or gold cloth of gold, decorated with large motifs.
2. Etheldreda takes leave of her husband before retiring to the abbey of Coldingham (top-right)
Etheldreda – still dressed as the queen and wearing a crown decorated with gems and pearls – turns to take leave of her husband, King Ecgfrith. She is accompanied by two female companions, named in the Liber Eliensis as Sewenna and Sewara. The king wears a jewelled crown and a gilded collar composed of huge ornamental blossoms with red centres. Behind him are two bearded companions wearing turban-like helmets. Suspended from the king’s belt is one of the earliest depictions in English art of a money-purse with a metal frame. The gilded gesso background to this scene is stamped with a running scroll and berry-bunch motif.
3. Etheldreda building her convent (bottom-left)
Etheldreda – dressed as a nun but still wearing her crown and accompanied again by Sewenna and Sewara – instructs five masons as they work on the construction of a building, apparently an aisleless church with solid stone walls and rebated windows. In the top right-hand corner is a tower or gatehouse.
4. The translation of the saint's uncorrupted remains to a marble coffin (bottom right)
In this scene, the saint’s miraculously preserved body has been placed in a stone coffin. This is decorated with a series of recessed cinqfoils beneath a line of scrolling foliage within a cavetto moulding. At the head of the tomb, holding a crozier, is Etheldreda’s sister and successor, Abbess Seaxburgh. One of the nuns points at a red gash on the saint’s neck, the result of surgery to remove a tumour from her jaw before she died. Wilfrid, Bishop of York, raises his hands in wonder at the sight of the wound.
Inscriptions
Inscription content
Eicfrid[o] regi : non carnis su[bdita legi]
[E]the[ldreda sponsa datur : nec vi]rg[initas violatur]
Hic rex dat votum : quod sancta petit fore totum:
Extans corde rata : permansit virgo beate:
Hic nova templa deo fund[at].......
[I]n ipsa [vi]rgin[eis]........
Quater quaternos : est ut tu[m]ulata pe[r] annos:
I[n]tegra spe[c]tatur :... prec[isa] cutis medicatur:
[E]the[ldreda sponsa datur : nec vi]rg[initas violatur]
Hic rex dat votum : quod sancta petit fore totum:
Extans corde rata : permansit virgo beate:
Hic nova templa deo fund[at].......
[I]n ipsa [vi]rgin[eis]........
Quater quaternos : est ut tu[m]ulata pe[r] annos:
I[n]tegra spe[c]tatur :... prec[isa] cutis medicatur:
Inscriber role/association
Artist
Inscription date
c. 1455
References
Reference (free text)
Virginia Blanton, Signs of Devotion: The Cult of St Æthelthryth in Medieval England, 695-1615 (University Park: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007), p. 192.Illustrations (Photographs), dust jacket, frontispiece, p. 54, p. 192.
Reference (free text)
Susan Pearce, ed., Visions of Antiquity: The Society of Antiquaries of London, 1707-2007 (London: Society of Antiquaries of London, 2007), p. 207, fig. 65.
Reference (free text)
David Gaimster, Sarah McCarthy, and Bernard Nurse, eds., Making History, Antiquaries in Britain, 1707-2007 (London: Royal Academy of Arts, 2007), p. 69, fig. 10.
Illustration, p. 69.
Reference (free text)
A copy of the report can be found in the Collections Manager's office, third floor, room 3 in the filing cabinet ('Paintings - Dendro Surveys')
Oil on oak panel painting depicting the life of St. Etheldreda in four scenes : (1) The Marriage of Etheldreda to Ecgfrith, (2) Etheldreda takes leave of her husband before retiring to the abbey of Coldingham, (3) Etheldreda building her convent, and (4) The translation of the saint’s uncorrupted remains to a marble coffin.
This panel painting is a wonderful example of pre-Reformation religious art, and one of only two surviving pictorial cycles of St Etheldreda's legend.
Etheldreda (Aethelthryth (OE), later Audrey) (d 679), abbess of Ely, the most important native female saint of medieval England, was the daughter of Anna, King of the East Angles (reigned 600 to 625). The earliest account of her life was written by Bede (c 672–735) who was able to consult Wilfrid, Bishop of York (d 709), who had witnessed some of the episodes described. Bede records that Etheldreda, a recently widowed virgin, was given as a bride to Ecgfrith, King of Northumbria (reigned 670 to 685). After twelve years of unconsummated marriage, the king agreed to her joining the abbey of Coldingham as a nun. A year later, she became abbess of a monastery that she herself had founded at Ely. She was to remain there for a further seven years until her death, after which her wooden coffin was placed in the nuns’ burial ground.
After an interval of sixteen years, it was decided that her remains should be translated to the church. During the search for good stone for a new coffin, a beautiful tomb of white marble came to light at nearby Cambridge and was duly taken to Ely. When Etheldreda’s remains were transferred from the old coffin, her body was found to be undecayed. Moreover, a surgeon’s incision in her neck, made shortly before her death, was seen to have healed. Etheldreda’s remains were translated for a second time in 1106 to the current church, which became a cathedral in 1109. Her shrine, given a new setting with the enlargement of the presbytery in 1252, was destroyed at the Reformation, in 1541.
The panels have been attributed to Robert Pygot, a Bury St Edmunds painter active in the 1450s and 1460s, known to have worked on the new shrine canopy at Ely Cathedral in 1455, and an inscription on a label on the back of the panels, presumably dating from the Society’s acquisition of them in 1828, suggests that the Society's panels once belonged to Ely cathedral. This is very likely to have been the case, given that Etheldreda is the cathedral’s patronal saint, though there is no documentary evidence to support this.
The rare panels were discovered by the Revd James Bentham (1708-94), in a cottage in Ely, split and used as cupboard doors.
Etheldreda (Aethelthryth (OE), later Audrey) (d 679), abbess of Ely, the most important native female saint of medieval England, was the daughter of Anna, King of the East Angles (reigned 600 to 625). The earliest account of her life was written by Bede (c 672–735) who was able to consult Wilfrid, Bishop of York (d 709), who had witnessed some of the episodes described. Bede records that Etheldreda, a recently widowed virgin, was given as a bride to Ecgfrith, King of Northumbria (reigned 670 to 685). After twelve years of unconsummated marriage, the king agreed to her joining the abbey of Coldingham as a nun. A year later, she became abbess of a monastery that she herself had founded at Ely. She was to remain there for a further seven years until her death, after which her wooden coffin was placed in the nuns’ burial ground.
After an interval of sixteen years, it was decided that her remains should be translated to the church. During the search for good stone for a new coffin, a beautiful tomb of white marble came to light at nearby Cambridge and was duly taken to Ely. When Etheldreda’s remains were transferred from the old coffin, her body was found to be undecayed. Moreover, a surgeon’s incision in her neck, made shortly before her death, was seen to have healed. Etheldreda’s remains were translated for a second time in 1106 to the current church, which became a cathedral in 1109. Her shrine, given a new setting with the enlargement of the presbytery in 1252, was destroyed at the Reformation, in 1541.
The panels have been attributed to Robert Pygot, a Bury St Edmunds painter active in the 1450s and 1460s, known to have worked on the new shrine canopy at Ely Cathedral in 1455, and an inscription on a label on the back of the panels, presumably dating from the Society’s acquisition of them in 1828, suggests that the Society's panels once belonged to Ely cathedral. This is very likely to have been the case, given that Etheldreda is the cathedral’s patronal saint, though there is no documentary evidence to support this.
The rare panels were discovered by the Revd James Bentham (1708-94), in a cottage in Ely, split and used as cupboard doors.