¹ This article is based in part on a paper presented at the seminar, ‘English Gothic Art: the Antiquarian Approach’, held at the Society of Antiquaries on 6 November 1987, which in turn grew out of a chapter in my doctoral dissertation, ‘The Westminster Retable: A Study in English Gothic Panel Painting’ (University of Michigan, 1986).Google Scholar For more recent publications on the Westminster Retable, see Alexander, J. J. G. and Binski, P. (eds.), The Age of Chivalry; Art in Plantagenel England 1200–1400, exhibition catalogue (London, 1987), 340–1, no. 329Google Scholar; Binski, P., ‘The earliest photographs of the Westminster Retable’, Burlington Magazine 130 (1988), 128–32Google Scholar; Crowthers, M., ‘The miracle of the Retable’, Landscape 3 (1987), 50–5.Google Scholar

² See below, note 7.

³ According to an examination of the Westminster Retable made in 1986 it consists of more than 3,500 ‘single elements'. London, Westminster Abbey Library, ‘Retable Working Report’ (typescript).

⁴ George Vertue (1684–1756), a noted engraver and antiquary, served as official engraver to the Society of Antiquaries from 1717 to 1756. The entry appears on page 51 (formerly 44) of Vertue's original Notebook A.b. (London, British Library MS Add. 23069) which he kept from 1721 to 1725. Vertue's pocket book for 1724–9 is lost, but Abbey records indicate that the effigies were shown on 1 March 1725 which may have been when Vertue visited (Westminster Abbey Muniments 60000). Two years before Vertue's discovery Dart published a lengthy description of the Islip Chapel, the effigies and even their cases without apparently noticing the Westminster Retable in the top of one of the cases: J. Dart, Westmonasterium, 2 vols. (London, 1723), I, 192–5, and pl. opposite 154. Seven of the effigies were repaired and placed in new wainscot presses in the time of Dr Richard Neile, dean of Westminster 1605–10. J. Ayloffe, An Account of Some Ancient Monuments in Westminster Abbey (London, 1780; reprinted in Vetusta Monumenta 2, (1789); St John Hope, W. H. and Robinson, J. A., ‘On the funeral effigies of the kings and queens of England with special reference to those in the abbey church of Westminster’, Archaeologia 60 (1907), 567–8; G. Vertue, ‘A dissertation on the monument of Edward the Confessor, 1736’, Archaeologia 1 (1770), 38 (reprinted as ‘Account of Edward the Confessor's monument’, in the second edition of the first volume of Archaeologia (1779), 38).Google Scholar

Lawrence E. Tanner, Keeper of the Muniments in Westminster Abbey 1926 to 1966, found reference to a new case being made for the royal effigies in 1606 on the occasion of the visit of the King of Denmark, the wording of which, ‘… to stay up the table over the statures [sic] …’, suggests it may have incorporated the Westminster Retable. Curiously, this part of the entry was added to the smith's bill by another hand. Westminster Abbey Muniments, 41, 110; Tanner, L. E., ‘The retable at Westminster’, The Times, 20 August 1931, 12.Google Scholar Keepe specified that there were two wainscot presses in the Islip Chapel, one crowded with seven effigies (Edward III and Philippa, Henry V and Katherine, Henry VII and Elizabeth, and Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales) while the other had only three (Queen Elizabeth, King James and Queen Anne): H. Keepe, Monumenta Westmonasteriensia (London, 1683), 133–4. This accords with the order in which Stow listed the effigies in 1598. J. Stow, A Survey of the Cities of London and Westminster, 2 vols. (London, 1720), II, 20. Robinson cited supporting evidence for this arrangement, some in the form of old rhymes. Hope and Robinson, op. cit. (above), 565–9. From later descriptions it is clear that the Westminster Retable formed the top or pan of the top of the smaller case which held the effigies of Queen Elizabeth, King James and Queen Anne. The effigy of Queen Elizabeth was rehabilitated in 1760 in connection with the bicentenary of the foundation of the Collegiate Church. Stanley, A. P., Historical Memorials of Westminster Abbey, 5th edn., (London, 1882), 321–5; Hope & Robinson, op. cit. (above), 569.Google Scholar

⁵ Walpole wrote of Vertue, ‘One satisfaction the reader will have in the integrity of Mr. Vertue: it exceeded his industry, which is saying much. No man living, so bigoted to a vocation, was ever so incapable of falsehood. He did not deal even in hypothesis, scarce in conjecture. He visited and revisited every picture, every monument that was an object of his researches; and being so little a slave to his own imagination, he was cautious of trusting to that of others. In his memorandums he always put a quaere against whatever was told him of suspicious aspect; and never gave credit to it till he received the fullest satisfaction.’ Walpole, H., Anecdotes of Painting in England, with additions by Dalloway, Revd (London, 1828), xiv–xvGoogle Scholar, and quoted in Cust, L. and Hind, A. M., ‘George Vertue's note-books and the manuscripts relating to the history of art in England’, Walpole Society, 3 (1913–1914), 122–3.Google Scholar

⁶ St John the Evangelist was sometimes not recognized by early scholars even in standard scenes of the Crucifixion, as in Ackermann, R., The History of the Abbey Church of St Peter's Westminster, 2 vols. (London, 1812), 11Google Scholar, 28, or Brayley, E. W. and Neale, J. P., The History and Antiquities of the Abbey Church ofSt Peter, Westminster, 2 vols. (London, 1818–1823), II 36.Google ScholarMalcolm, J. P. in his Londinum Redivivum, 4 vols. (London, 1802–1807), 1Google Scholar, 155, described the painting of the Crucifixion in the Chapel of St Faith (then known as the Chapel of St Blaize) as Christ on the cross flanked by the two Maries.

⁷ Vertue's specific identification and common iconographical practices make it most likely that St Paul was represented on the right end of the Westminster Retable. St Edward the Confessor is the next most likely candidate. Ghostly vestiges of this figure, discerned in certain lighting conditions, show a pose more frontal than that of St Peter. The nimbed figure holds a long, narrow object in his right hand, presumably a sword or sceptre.

⁸ Venue, G., ‘Notebooks’, Walpole Society 18 (1929–1930), 157. See above, note 5.Google Scholar

⁹ The Westminster Retable was not mentioned in Jodocus Crull, The Antiquities of St Peter's, or, the Abbey Church of Westminster, 2 vols. (London, 1742), one of the few books on the subject to appear at this time. See Clark, K., The Gothic Revival, 3rd edn. (New York, 1962), 26Google Scholar; Frew, J., ‘An aspect of the early Gothic Revival: The transformation of medieval research, 1770–1800’, J. Warburg Courtauld Inst. 43 (1980), 174, and below, note, 30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹⁰ G. Vertue, ‘A dissertation on the monument of Edward the Confessor’, Register Book of the Society of Antiquaries of London, 1 November 1740, Society of Antiquaries of London, MS 262, 126. Vertue thought it not unlikely that Cavallini, while at work in the Abbey, had also fashioned the bronze effigy of King Henry III for his tomb and had painted the figures over the ‘tomb of King Sebert’ (the sedilia).

¹¹ Vertue, op. cit., (note 4), 32–9.

¹² Ibid., 37.

¹³ Lewis characterized the organization of Vertue's notebooks as ‘higgledy-piggledy’ and ‘chaotic’. Walpole organized the material, verified some references and made many additions for ‘Walpole aspired to be the English Montfaucon as well as the English Vasari’. Lewis, W. S., Horace Walpole (New York, 1961), 153–4.Google Scholar Turner noted that Walpole's ‘utter darkness on the subject of English medieval art was relieved only by the glimmering light of Venue's collections’. Turner, H., Manners and Household Expenses of England in the Thirteenth and Fifteenth Centuries, Roxburghe Club, 57 (London, 1841), lxxviii.Google Scholar

¹⁴ Walpole op. cit. (note 5), 34. Walpole repeats Vertue's attribution of the Westminster Retable to Cavallini adding, ‘Vasari's silence on Cavalini's [sic] journey to England ought to be no objection.’

¹⁵ Gov. T. Pownall, ‘Observations on ancient painting in England’, Archaeologia 9 (1789), 141–56. Thomas Pownall (1722–1805), was known as ‘Governor’ from his brief service in the American colonies. His accomplice was presumably William Patoun (d. 1783), a Scottish painter and connoisseur who frequently advised others on works of art. See Whitley, W. T., Artists and their Friends in England 1700–1789, 2 vols. (London, 1928; reissued 1968), I, 196. It was an inquisitive, confident time. In 1774 Joseph Ayloffe reported to the Society of Antiquaries that when the tomb of King Edward I was opened, it was found that the king had been buried in garments decorated with false jewels of glass or paste. J. Ayloffe, Account of the Body of King Edward the First As it appeared On Opening his Tomb in the Year 1774, ([London], 1775), 9–10 (reprinted in Archaeologia 3 (1786), 376–431).Google Scholar

¹⁶ Pownall, op. cit. (note 15), 145.

¹⁷ Ayloffe, op. cit. (note 4).

¹⁸ Effigies were no longer used in the funeral processions but were purchased essentially as tourist attractions to raise money for the salaries of the Minor Canons, Choirmen and Vergers. See Fairholt, F. W., ‘The Westminster Abbey wax-work’, Art Journal (1 January 1860), 21Google Scholar; Hope and Robinson, op. cit. (note 4), 517–70; Howgrave-Graham, R. P., ‘The earlier royal funeral effigies; new light on portraiture in Westminster Abbey’, Archaeologia 98 (1961), 159–69CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Tanner, L. E., Recollections of a Westminster Antiquary (London, 1969), 133–5Google Scholar; Tanner, L. E. and Nevinson, J. L., ‘On some later funeral effigies in Westminster Abbey’ Archaeologia, 85 (1936), 169–202.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹⁹ For Patience Lovell Wright (1725–86), see Sellers, C. C., Patience Wright, American Artist and Spy in George III's London (Middletown, Connecticut, 1976)Google Scholar, and, more recently, Petteys, C., Dictionary of Women Artists (Boston, 1982), 770Google Scholar; Rubinstein, C. S., American Women Artists (Boston, 1982), 23–6.Google Scholar

²⁰ Walpole wrote to Lady Ossory on 11 February 1773: ‘…—and appropos to puppets, there is a Mrs Wright arrived from America to make figures in wax of Lord Chatham, Lord Lyttleton and Mrs Macaulay. Lady Ailesbury literally spoke to a waxen figure of a house-maid in the room for the artistess has brought over a group and Mrs Fitzroy's aunt is one of them.’ Lewis, W. S. and Wallace, A. D. (eds.), Horace Walpole's Correspondence with The Countess of Upper Ossory, I, (The Yale Edition of Horace Walpole's Correspondence, vol. 32, New Haven, 1965), 98.Google Scholar

²¹ London Chronicle (4–7 December 1773); quoted in Sellers, op. cit. (note 19), 58.

²² Ibid., 50–1, 66–7. Patience Wright's work received a rave review in an unsigned letter to the editor of the Gentleman's Magazine in 1776: ‘As it is now the general season for exhibition, give me leave, through your Magazine, to recommend to the notice of the public the performance of a lady of very singular genius.

Mrs. Wright, of Chudleigh court, Pall-mall, is one of the most extraordinary women of the age. As an artist she stands alone, for it is not in memory, that there now exists a person possessed of her abilities as a modeller in wax. In her present exhibition, is the busts of the King and Queen, the Duke of Cumberland, Lord North, Lord Chatham, Lord Effingham, Lord Temple, Jonas Hanaway, Dr. Wilson, John Wilkes, and others, were not sufficient proofs of her skill, that of the Rev. Mr. Gostling, of Canterbury, lately finished, would be incontestible evidence of her happy talent of preserving an admirable likeness, and coming the nearest to a representation of life of any artist that ever attempted modelling.’ Letter to Mr Urban, the Gentleman's Magazine 46 (1776), 214–15.

²³ Sellers, op. cit. (note 19), 50–1, 66–7, 97, 119, 127–30, 200, 222–4.

²⁴ Westminster Abbey Muniments 60000. This small, brown notebook which records both the process and the expenses of obtaining the effigy of Chatham is inscribed inside the front cover, ‘Richd, Clerk. Abbey’.

²⁵ The Westminster Abbey Muniments include miscellaneous abstracts of estimates and bills from Morris Marsalt dating 1769 to 1784.

²⁶ ‘Some miserable vandals actually covered this and the penultimate sinister panel with a neat coating of white paint in order to form a more suitable background for the effigy of the Earl of Chatham’. Perkins, J., Westminster Abbey Its Worship and Ornaments, 3 vols., Alcuin Club Collections, 33, 34, 38 (London, 1938–1952), 1Google Scholar, 16. Perkins had used the same epithet in his earlier book, Westminster Abbey, The Empire's Crown (London, 1937), 261.Google Scholar

²⁷ Westminster Abbey Muniments 60000. A note found in the pocket of the effigy's waistcoat bore the name ‘Miss Wright’. Tanner and Nevinson, op. cit. (note 18), 197. In 1781 Phoebe Wright married the artist John Hoppner. Sellers, op. cit. (note 19), 149–51.

²⁸ Westminster Abbey Muniments 60000.

²⁹ Ibid.

³⁰ Numerous accounts attest to the popularity of the Chatham effigy, as for example, this description of the Islip Chapel in a tourist guide to the Abbey: ‘In a chantry over this chapel are handsome wainscot presses, which contain the effigies of Queen Elizabeth, King William and Queen Mary, and Queen Ann [sic], in their coronation robes. But what eclipses the brilliancy of those effigies, is the admirable figure of the great Earl of Chatham in his parliamentary robes, lately introduced at a considerable expense. It so well represents the original, that there is nothing wanting but real life; for it seems to speak to you as you approach it. The eagerness of connoisseurs and foreign artists to see this figure, and the satisfaction it affords them, justly places it among the first of the kind ever seen in this or any other country.’ An Historical Account of the Curiosities of London and Westminster, 3 pans (London, 1782–7), pt. II, An Historical Description of Westminster Abbey, its Monuments and Curiosities, 50–1. This description continued to be printed in subsequent editions well into the nineteenth century. Similarly, both Malcolm's and Brayley and Neale's descriptions of the Islip Chapel mentioned the Chatham and other effigies, the presses and even the fact that the cases partially obscured paintings of the Crucifixion and Last Judgment on the east wall, but the authors were apparently unaware of the far more important medieval painting built into one of these very presses, Brayley and Neale, op. cit. (note 6). 11, 190–1; Malcolm, op. cit. (note 6), I, 122. By the twentieth century, memory of Patience Wright had faded and appreciation of the artistic merit of the Chatham effigy had declined: ‘The remaining figures are those of Pitt and Nelson. The former is not very good and unquestionably gives anything but a fair idea of George III's greatest minister. That of Nelson, on the contrary, is excellent …’ Allnutt, T. S., ‘The wax-works at Westminster Abbey’, Windsor Magazine (April 1963), 644. Comparing the wax portrait of Chatham with his death mask, Tanner and Nevinson reported that the ‘resemblance was most striking and convincing’, Tanner and Nevinson, op. cit. (note 18), 196, n. 3.Google Scholar

³¹ Smith, J. T., Nollekens and His Times (London, 1828; reprinted 1986), 113–14.Google ScholarPubMed Part of this conversation was quoted in Howgrave-Graham, op. cit. (note 18), 159. Mrs Salmon's popular waxworks in Fleet Street displayed wax figures and tableaux of all descriptions, from Biblical prophets to the sensational oddities covered by tabloids today. Later the humourist Max Beerbohm recounted a typical tourist's visit to see the wax effigies in the Islip Chapel of Westminster Abbey. He observed ‘it is ever the Americans who hang the most tenaciously, in the greatest numbers, on the vergers’ tired lips' and therefore he suggested that the vergers be replaced with parrots to repeat the same information to all the tourists. Beerbohm described ‘the winding wooden staircase’ to the chapel where the ‘light is dim’ and how he became ‘dimly aware that through each glass case some one is watching me. Like sentinels in sentry-boxes, they fix me with their eyes …’. He concluded that ‘waxworks are not a serious art form’. Beerbohm, M., ‘The Ragged Regiment’, Pall Mall Magazine (1904), 289–91.Google Scholar

³² The Dean of Westminster, John Thomas, at least knew Horace Walpole and once breakfasted at Strawberry Hill. H. Walpole, Letter of Lady Ossory, 7 October 1773, in Lewis and Wallace, op. cit. (note 20), 156. Thomas also invited Pownall to inspect the monuments exposed when tapestries were temporarily removed from the choir of the abbey in 1775. Pownall, op. cit. (note 15), 145–6.

³³ J. S. Hawkins in J. Carter, Specimens of Ancient Sculpture and Painting, 2 vols. (London, [1786–7]), 1, 26 n. Hawkins (1758–1842) also provided the text for Smith's, J. T.Antiquities of Westminster (London, 1807).Google Scholar

³⁴ J. S. Hawkins, ‘An account of the painting on the south side, over the monument of Sebert, King of the East Saxons, in Westminster Abbey’, in J. Schnebbelie, The Antiquaries Museum (London, 1791), 10.

³⁵ Of the Westminster Retable, Carter wrote: ‘In a box inclosing other Royal wax figures in Islip's chantry has been substituted, by way of covering, some compartmented work of small mosaic ornamental carvings and paintings of figures, of a design so delicate, an execution so exquisite, that an absolute view alone of the same, and that with the utmost attention, can give the least idea thereof. No hesitation need be made, when it is affirmed, that it must have been a small portion of the highly estimated shrines that once rendered the scenic display of the interior of this pile so shining and so glorious!’ Carter, J., Letter to the Editor, 19 July, the Gentleman's Magazine, 87, pt. II (1817), 33–4.Google Scholar Curiously, in an earlier letter Carter endorsed a course of action which might have resulted in the destruction of the Westminster Retable: ‘However, if my ‘Squire’ intends no more than merely sweeping the filth out of the Chapels, and turning out the wax fiures, he has my full consent and approbation!’ Carter, J., Letter to the Editor, 5 October, the Gentleman's Magazine, 79 pt. II (1809), 933.Google Scholar For a listing of Carter's letters, many of which were sent anonymously, see Kuist, J. M., The Nichols File of The Gentleman's Magazine (Madison, 1982), 45–8.Google Scholar

³⁶ The Westminster Retable is not mentioned even in such likely books as Malcolm op. cit. (note 6); Ackermann, R., The History of the Abbey Church of St Peter's Westminster: Its Antiquities and Monuments, 2 vols. (London, 1812)Google Scholar, or Harding, G. P. and Moule, T., Antiquities in Westminster Abbey (London, 1825).Google Scholar For an assessment of the medieval interests of the period, see Allen, B. S., Tides in English Taste (1619–1800), 2 vols. (Cambridge, Mass., 1937)Google Scholar; Cobb, G., English Cathedrals: The Forgotten Centuries (London, 1980)Google Scholar; Frankl, P., The Gothic: Literary Sources and Interpretations through Eight Centuries (Princeton, 1960)Google Scholar; J. Frew, op. cit., (note 9); Herrmann, F., The English as Collectors (London, 1972)Google Scholar; Munby, A. N. L., Connoisseurs and Medieval Miniatures 1750–1850 (Oxford, 1972).Google Scholar

³⁷ Edward Blore (1787–1879), an architect and artist, was a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and one of the founders of the Royal Archaeological Institute.

³⁸ Society of Antiquaries of London, Minute Book, 20 November, 1823 to 25 February 1830, XXXV, 307–8.

³⁹ Westminster Abbey Muniments 66245. This glass case certainly saved the Westminster Retable from further damage of the type described in a letter from Thomas Wright, Clerk of the Works, to the Dean and Chapter of Westminster Abbey, dated 8 November 1886: ‘I have noticed for some time past that some more of the squares of glass in the Waxwork room Especially in the case containing the figure of Sheffield are being spoiled by visitors writing their names on them. This nuisance is brought about by visitors being allowed to go up without any of the guides with them.’ Westminster Abbey Muniments RCO 6.

⁴⁰ Westminster Abbey Muniments 66247. James H. Markland (1788–1864), a London solicitor elected F.S.A. in 1809, served as Director of the Society 1827–9. In 1827 he advocated the foundation of a museum of antiquities, Evans, J., A History of the Society of Antiquaries (Oxford, 1956), 350, 313. Thomas Amyot (1775–1850) had become Treasurer of the Society of Antiquaries in 1823 and later served as Vice-President. The portrait painter Thomas Phillips (1770–1845) had been elected F.S.A. in 1819.Google Scholar

⁴¹ Society of Antiquaries of London, Minute Book, op. cit. (note 38), 376. James Stephanoff (1788?-1874), a noted water-colourist, was known for his interest in antiquarian matters. No drawings of the Westminster Retable by Edward Blore himself have yet to come to light, and his drawing of the Islip Chapel is not helpful. London, Victoria and Albert Museum, acc. no. 8741.9, press mark A.263. Roberts notes, ‘To antiquarians at this time, “to preserve” often meant to make a drawing.’ Roberts, M. E., ‘John Carter at St Stephen's Chapel: a Romantic turns archaeologist,’ in Ormrod, W. M. (ed.), England in the Fourteenth Century, Proceedings of the 1985 Harlaxton Symposium (Woodbridge, Suffolk, and Dover, New Hampshire, 1986), 210.Google Scholar

⁴² Ibid., 390.

⁴³ The entry is problematical for it lists ‘two framed drawings of St Sebert's Shrine, in Westminster Abbey by Mr Stephanoff’. Society of Antiquaries of London, Minute Book, 19 November 1835 to 19 December 1839, XXXVIII, 375.

⁴⁴ Two drawings by Stephanoff were listed in Way, A., Catalogue of Antiquities, Coins, Pictures and Miscellaneous Curiosities in the Possession of the Society of Antiquaries of London (London, 1847), 55Google Scholar, but the misleading entry was for two coloured drawings dated 1838. Rokewode knew of all four works: ‘In the collection of the Society of Antiquaries is a drawing in outline of the general design of the frontal; and also copies of a figure of St Peter, and of some ornamental portions remaining.’ Rokewode, J. G, ‘An account of the Painted Chamber in the Royal Palace at Westminster’, Vetusta Monumenta VI (London, 1885).Google Scholar In Scharf's, George‘Catalogue Raisonné of the Pictures in the Possession of the Society of Antiquaries at Somerset House’, Fine Arts Quarterly Review, 2 (1864), 167–8Google Scholar, only the water-colour of St Peter is mentioned, again dated 1838. It was reproduced by Lethaby, W. R. in ‘English Primitives III—The Master of the Westminster Altarpiece’, Burlington Magazine 29 (1916), 351Google Scholar, pl. IV (A), but he believed that the other drawings had disappeared. Of the Stephanoff drawings, only the water-colour of St Peter was included in the Royal Academy's Exhibition of British Primitive Paintings, held in 1923 (exhibition catalogue, Oxford, 1924, no. 4).Google Scholar

⁴⁵ Binski, op. cit. (note 1).

⁴⁶ ‘Antiquarian researches: curious paintings just discovered in Westminster Abbey’, the Gentleman's Magazine 97 (1827), 251. Although the Gentleman's Magazine now credited Blore with the ‘discovery’ of the Westminster Retable in 1827, the same magazine had, only ten years earlier, published John Carter's letter which mentioned the Retable. Carter, op. cit. (note 35).Google Scholar

⁴⁷ Rokewode, op. cit., (note 44).

⁴⁸ Eastlake, C., Materials for a History of Oil Painting, 2 vols. (Toronto and London, 1847Google Scholar, 1869; reprinted as Methods and Materials of Painting of the Great Schools and Masters. 2 vols. (New York, 1960), I, 176–7).Google Scholar See Robertson, D., Sir Charles Eastlake and the Victorian Art World (Princeton, 1978).Google Scholar Ruskin reviewed Eastlake's book but did not comment on the Westminster Retable. Ruskin, J., The Works of John Ruskin, edited by Cook, E. T. and Wedderburn, A., 39 vols. (London, 1903–1912, XXII, 267–9.Google Scholar

⁴⁹ Eastlake's painting, ‘Christ restoring life of the Daughter of Jairus’, was exhibited in 1813. See Robertson, op. cit. (note 48), 249.

⁵⁰ Viollet-le-Duc visited Westminster Abbey on 2 and 3 June 1850. See Middleton, R. D., ‘Viollet le Due: son influence en Angleterre’ in Actes du Colloque International Viollet le Duc (Paris, 1980), 265–83,Google Scholar and Middleton, ‘Viollet-le-Duc's influence in nineteenth-century England’, Art History 4 (1981), 206.Google Scholar

⁵¹ Viollet-le-Duc, E. E., Dictionnaire raisonné du mobilier français, 6 vols. (Paris, 1858–1875), I, 234–7Google Scholar, fig. 2, 386, fig. 4, pls. IX and XXII, and Viollet-le-Duc, , Dictionnaire raisonné de l'architecture française de XI^e au XVI^e siècle, 10 vols. (Paris, 1861–1875), I, 40.Google Scholar

⁵² Obviously, the colours used for the plate of St Peter, which Lethaby generously described as ‘admirably bright’, are entirely imaginary and reflect neither the present nor the somewhat more vivid original colour scheme. The colour plate of the decorative details is equally inventive. Viollet-le-Duc, op. cit. (note 51, Mobilier) I, pls. IX, XXII.

⁵³ The composition of the Healing of the Blind Man indeed resembles some medieval representations of the Woman Taken in Adultery. Viollet-le-Duc, op. cit. (note 51, Mobilier), I, 237.

⁵⁴ For the Manchester exhibition, see Art Treasures of the United Kingdom Exhibition, 1857 (London, 1858).Google Scholar This exhibition ‘catalogue’ was issued in thirty-two parts, fortnightly, to encourage continuing public interest. Similarly, the exhibition became known in France through a series of published letters. Blanc, C., Les Trésors de l'art à Manchester (Paris, 1857).Google Scholar

⁵⁵ Middleton, op. cit. (note 50), 1980, 268, and 1981, 206.

⁵⁶ Scott, as had Venue, identified the figure to Christ's left as a female, which, given the beardless youth of St John and the unique iconography, is an understandable error. Scott, G. G., Gleanings from Westminster Abbey (Oxford and London, 1861), 47–8Google Scholar; see above, note 6. But Scott's assertion that Saint Peter and Saint Paul stood in niches is more troublesome since the righthand sections had been obliterated before Scott's birth. It is possible, especially in light of his position at the abbey, that Scott was working from an older description of the panel. If this is so, it is regrettable that he did not mention it. It is also possible that he merely assumed that Peter would naturally have been paired with Paul, as was most common, and so stated without other evidence. Scott had the Westminster Retable in mind as he worked on the new high altarpiece (Westminster Abbey Muniments RCO 5) and, in a lecture on the thirteenth century to the Royal Academy, Scott once called attention to the Westminster Retable suggesting it was by an Italian painter, Scott, G. G., Lectures on the Rise and Development of Mediaeval Architecture, 2 vols. (London, 1879), I, 181.Google Scholar

⁵⁷ W. Burges, ‘The Retabulum’, in Scott, G. G., Gleanings from Westminster Abbey, 2nd edn. (Oxford and London, 1863), 105–14.Google Scholar In this second edition, Scott did not alter his own text to reconcile the differences between his description of the Retable and that given by Burges. For William Burges (1827–81), the eminent Gothic Revival architect and designer who trained with Edward Blore, see Crook, J. M., William Burges and the High Victorian Dream (London, 1981).Google Scholar

⁵⁸ For the wood engraver Thomas Orlando Shelton Jewitt (1799–1864), see Carter, H., Orlando Jewitt (London, 1962), 36–7. Lethaby (op. cit. (note 44), 252, figs. 2–4) republished these woodcuts in an article on the Retable.Google Scholar

⁵⁹ Scharf, op. cit. (note 44), 167–8; Stanley, A. P., Historical Memorials of Westminster Abbey, 2nd edn., (London, 1868), 550Google Scholar; Woltmann, A. and Woermann, K., History of Painting, 2 vols. (London, 1880, 1887), I, 405Google Scholar; Keyser, C., A List of Buildings in Great Britain and Ireland having Mural and Other Painted Decorations, 3rd edn. (London, 1883), lx, 270.Google Scholar

⁶⁰ Brewer, H. E., ‘The old high altar of Westminster Abbey’, The Builder, 63 (1892), 14–15.Google Scholar

⁶¹ Society of Antiquaries of London, Catalogue of Exhibition of English Medieval Paintings and Illuminated Manuscripts (London, 1896)Google Scholar, no. 8. At the meeting of 14 January 1897, J. Oldrid Scott exhibited his drawing of part of the Retable as it would look restored (Proc. Soc. Antiq. London, 2nd ser., 16 (1897), 268).Google Scholar

⁶² See the minutes of the meetings of 23 April 1897 and 23 June 1898 (Proc. Soc. Antiq. London, 2nd ser., 16 (1897), 367; 2nd ser., 17 (1898), 197).Google Scholar

⁶³ Binski, op. cit. (note 1).

⁶⁴ For example, Morrill wrote to the President of the Society of Antiquaries on 18 March 1898, ‘In answer to your's of this morning I think it would be more satisfactory if you was to see me at the Abbey and day after Monday next, when you could see what I have done, and what I have got to do, and perhaps I could then give you an idea about when it would be completed.’ Society of Antiquaries of London, Correspondence 1897–1899, C21.

⁶⁵ Lethaby's paper was noted in Proc. Soc. Antiq. London, 2nd ser., 16 (1896), 210–11Google Scholar, but apparently no copy was kept. In 1927 Lethaby introduced a paper to the British Academy with the words, ‘This afternoon I am going to work on ground which has recently been a good deal travelled over; indeed I recall that about thirty years ago I read a paper in Burlington House on ‘The painters of the Westminster School’.’ Lethaby, W. R., ‘Medieval paintings at Westminster’, Proc. Brit. Acad., 13 (1927), 123.Google Scholar William Richard Lethaby (1857–1931) trained as an architect and followed the tradition of Edward Blore and Gilbert Scott by serving as Surveyor of the Fabric of Westminster Abbey 1906–27. See Rubens, G., William Richard Lethaby, His Life and Work 1857–1931 (London, 1986), which includes a bibliography of Lethaby's numerous publications.Google Scholar

⁶⁶ London, Royal Academy, Exhibition of British Primitive Paintings, no. 3.

⁶⁷ Generally in England there was more interest in early Italian painting than in the early art of the North. On the growing interest in the ‘primitives’, see: Borenius, T., ‘The rediscovery of the primitives,’ Quarterly Rev. 239 (1923), 258–70Google Scholar; Haskell, F., Rediscoveries in Art: Some Aspects of Taste, Fashion and Collecting in England and France (Ithaca, 1976)Google Scholar; Levey, M., ‘Botticelli and nineteenth-century England’, J. Warburg Courtauld Inst. 23 (1960), 291–306CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Reitlinger, G., The Economics of Taste: The Rise and Fall of Picture Prices 1760–1960, 3 vols. (London, 1961–1970), 1, 119–31)Google Scholar, 11, 67–75; Sulzberger, S., ‘La Réhabilitation des primitifs flamands 1802–1867’, Academic Royal de Belgique Mémoires, 12·3 (1961).Google Scholar The important early exhibitions include: Bruges, Exposition des Primitifs Flamands el d'Art Ancien, 1902; London, Burlington Fine Arts Club, Exhibition of Illuminated Manuscripts, 1908; Paris, Louvre, L’Exposition des primitifs français, 1904. For a more complete listing, see Panofsky, E., Early Netherlandish Painting, 2 vols. (Cambridge, 1953Google Scholar; reprinted New York, 1961), I, Bibliography, II, Collections and Exhibitions, 533–5. Roger Fry, in his review of the 1904 exhibition in Paris, ‘The exhibition of French primitives—part II,’ Burlington Magazine 5 (1904), 280, praised the Westminster Retable.Google Scholar

⁶⁸ Malcolm, op. cit., (note 6). Stothard's drawings of the Painted Chamber were engraved and published by the Society of Antiquaries in volume VI of Vetusta Monumenta, with a commentary by J. Gage Rokewode, while his original watercolour copies of t he paintings in the Painted Chamber have been preserved by the Society of Antiquaries. Crocker's drawings are divided between the Ashmolean Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum. There is a rough, freely executed drawing of the figure of Christ from the Westminster Retable in a scrapbook of drawings of miscellaneous medieval monuments in the Victoria and Albert Museum (Press Mark 93. E.3 [D593.7], p.6), which had belonged to William Burges. Undated and unsigned, this nineteenth-century sketch labelled ‘altar frontal Westminster Abbey’, although possibly by Burges himself, is a far less helpful record than the careful renderings by Crocker of the Painted Chamber in the same notebook. See Binski, P., The Painted Chamber at Westminster, Soc. Antiq. London Occ. Pap. 9 (London, 1986), 114 and passim. Lethaby op. cit. (note 44), 351, knew of this drawing. Presumably it is not the drawing exhibited by J. Oldrid Scott since it does not show the painting restored, see above, note 61.Google Scholar

⁶⁹ Flaxman was especially enthusiastic about certain works stylistically related to the Westminster Retable, including the tomb of Crouchback in Westminster Abbey and the three surviving Eleanor Crosses, and he was also interested in the later paintings at St Stephen's Chapel. Irwin, D., John Flaxman 1755–1826 (London, 1979), 6–42, 202–7Google Scholar; Smith, J. T., A Book for a Rainy Day: or Recollections of the Events of the Last Sixty-Six Years (London 1845), 158–9.Google Scholar