Object of Devotion: Medieval English Alabaster Sculpture
from the Victoria and Albert Museum
December 3, 2011–February 12, 2012
An exhibition of sixty alabaster panels and freestanding sculptures made in late medieval England, to be shown at the Princeton University Art Museum this winter, will offer rare insight into the spiritual lives and religious customs of medieval Christians. Selected from the holdings of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the world’s largest repository of such works, they represent the major types of alabaster sculpture and depict both popular and less usual subjects for display in homes, chapels, and churches. The dates of the sculptures range from ca. 1370 through 1530, when the Protestant Reformation put an end to the creation of new religious art.
The exhibition draws attention to the “alabastermen,” specialists in the English Midlands, around Nottingham, who sculpted the stone mined there, prized for its high quality. The subjects were chosen to appeal to churchmen, aristocrats, and wealthy non-aristocratic patrons. The relatively small works were assembled to form entire altarpieces recounting the lives of Christ and the Virgin Mary, or used as devotional works dedicated to the most revered saints. The exhibition examines the working methods of the sculptors, the exportation of much of their work to the European continent, and the stylistic evolution and different levels of quality of the sculptures. Object of Devotion also chronicles the abrupt end of the alabaster-carving tradition in England at the time of the Reformation, when works in English churches were defaced or destroyed during outbursts of Protestant iconoclasm and the alabastermen sold off their stock in continental Europe.
The rediscovery and revaluation of alabaster sculpture is the coda of the story. By the late nineteenth century, alabaster sculpture was collected and prized for the insights it was thought to afford into medieval folklore, while in the early twentieth century, artists appreciated the abstract and conceptual qualities of this type of sculpture, which appealed to modernists. In recent years, English alabaster sculpture has been studied for the light it sheds on late medieval worship and devotional practices, and the status of images in different religious and social factions on the eve of the Reformation.
Betsy Jean Rosasco
Research Curator of European Painting and Sculpture
Object of Devotion: Medieval English Alabaster Sculpture from the Victoria and Albert Museum was organized and circulated by Art Services International, Alexandria, Virginia, and is supported by a grant from the Samuel H. Kress Foundation. His Excellency Sir Nigel Sheinwald, Ambassador of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland to the United States of America, is Honorary Patron of the exhibition.
The exhibition in Princeton has been made possible with major support from the Frederick H. Remington, Class of 1943, Trust, and from the Peter Jay Sharp Foundation; John H. Rassweiler; the National Endowment for the Arts; and the Apparatus Fund. Additional generous support has been provided by the Allen R. Adler, Class of 1967, Exhibitions Fund; the Judith and Anthony B. Evnin, Class of 1962, Exhibitions Fund; the Frances and Elias Wolf, Class of 1920, Fund; and an anonymous supporter. Further support has been provided by the Index of Christian Art, Princeton University; and the Partners and Friends of the Princeton University Art Museum.
from the Victoria and Albert Museum
December 3, 2011–February 12, 2012
An exhibition of sixty alabaster panels and freestanding sculptures made in late medieval England, to be shown at the Princeton University Art Museum this winter, will offer rare insight into the spiritual lives and religious customs of medieval Christians. Selected from the holdings of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the world’s largest repository of such works, they represent the major types of alabaster sculpture and depict both popular and less usual subjects for display in homes, chapels, and churches. The dates of the sculptures range from ca. 1370 through 1530, when the Protestant Reformation put an end to the creation of new religious art.
The exhibition draws attention to the “alabastermen,” specialists in the English Midlands, around Nottingham, who sculpted the stone mined there, prized for its high quality. The subjects were chosen to appeal to churchmen, aristocrats, and wealthy non-aristocratic patrons. The relatively small works were assembled to form entire altarpieces recounting the lives of Christ and the Virgin Mary, or used as devotional works dedicated to the most revered saints. The exhibition examines the working methods of the sculptors, the exportation of much of their work to the European continent, and the stylistic evolution and different levels of quality of the sculptures. Object of Devotion also chronicles the abrupt end of the alabaster-carving tradition in England at the time of the Reformation, when works in English churches were defaced or destroyed during outbursts of Protestant iconoclasm and the alabastermen sold off their stock in continental Europe.
The rediscovery and revaluation of alabaster sculpture is the coda of the story. By the late nineteenth century, alabaster sculpture was collected and prized for the insights it was thought to afford into medieval folklore, while in the early twentieth century, artists appreciated the abstract and conceptual qualities of this type of sculpture, which appealed to modernists. In recent years, English alabaster sculpture has been studied for the light it sheds on late medieval worship and devotional practices, and the status of images in different religious and social factions on the eve of the Reformation.
Betsy Jean Rosasco
Research Curator of European Painting and Sculpture
Object of Devotion: Medieval English Alabaster Sculpture from the Victoria and Albert Museum was organized and circulated by Art Services International, Alexandria, Virginia, and is supported by a grant from the Samuel H. Kress Foundation. His Excellency Sir Nigel Sheinwald, Ambassador of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland to the United States of America, is Honorary Patron of the exhibition.
The exhibition in Princeton has been made possible with major support from the Frederick H. Remington, Class of 1943, Trust, and from the Peter Jay Sharp Foundation; John H. Rassweiler; the National Endowment for the Arts; and the Apparatus Fund. Additional generous support has been provided by the Allen R. Adler, Class of 1967, Exhibitions Fund; the Judith and Anthony B. Evnin, Class of 1962, Exhibitions Fund; the Frances and Elias Wolf, Class of 1920, Fund; and an anonymous supporter. Further support has been provided by the Index of Christian Art, Princeton University; and the Partners and Friends of the Princeton University Art Museum.
