painting Margery Smith
Object number
LDSAL543
Artist/Designer/Maker
Unknown artist
Production date
1615
Material
oil paint
canvas (paint canvas)
canvas (paint canvas)
Dimensions
height: 405mm
width: 570mm
width: 570mm
Location
Burlington House - stored
Content description
The main part of the composition shows a family kneeling in prayer with seven boys and three girls behind their parents. A prayer desk is in front of the father. The object at the bottom is a chest or coffin fastened by metal straps and standing on tiny bracket feet. On top of the coffin is the skull and crossbones, a familiar symbol of death.
Inscriptions
Inscription content
Watch and pray
Inscriber role/association
Artist
Inscription date
1615
Inscription content
his aige 55 1615
Inscriber role/association
Artist
Inscription date
1615
Inscription content
Her lyeth the body of Margery late wife to Siles Smith Clerke nowe pastor/ of [Sca]mpton eldest daughter of John Purne of Nibley in the County Glocester/ clother, who hed seuen sonnes and three Douthers and departed this/ Life the 15: of February 1615 Verescit post funere virtus
Inscriber role/association
Artist
Inscription date
1615
Oil on canvas painting showing a family kneeling in prayer; funerary monument to Margery Smith. Painted 1615.
Margery Smith (d. 1616) was the eldest daughter of John Purnell, clothier, of North Nibley, Gloucestershire. She married Giles Smith; they had seven sons and three daughters and she died in 1616.
This is a rare survival of a framed painted canvas funeral monument.
This is a rare survival of a framed painted canvas funeral monument.