Revisiting the Monument Fifty Years Since Panofsky’S Tomb Sculpture
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REVISITING THE MONUMENT FIFTY YEARS SINCE PANOFSKY’S TOMB SCULPTURE EDITED BY ANN ADAMS JESSICA BARKER Revisiting The Monument: Fifty Years since Panofsky’s Tomb Sculpture Edited by Ann Adams and Jessica Barker With contributions by: Ann Adams Jessica Barker James Alexander Cameron Martha Dunkelman Shirin Fozi Sanne Frequin Robert Marcoux Susie Nash Geoffrey Nuttall Luca Palozzi Matthew Reeves Kim Woods Series Editor: Alixe Bovey Courtauld Books Online is published by the Research Forum of The Courtauld Institute of Art Somerset House, Strand, London WC2R 0RN © 2016, The Courtauld Institute of Art, London. ISBN: 978-1-907485-06-0 Courtauld Books Online Advisory Board: Paul Binski (University of Cambridge) Thomas Crow (Institute of Fine Arts) Michael Ann Holly (Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute) Courtauld Books Online is a series of scholarly books published by The Courtauld Institute of Art. The series includes research publications that emerge from Courtauld Research Forum events and Courtauld projects involving an array of outstanding scholars from art history and conservation across the world. It is an open-access series, freely available to readers to read online and to download without charge. The series has been developed in the context of research priorities of The Courtauld which emphasise the extension of knowledge in the fields of art history and conservation, and the development of new patterns of explanation. For more information contact [email protected] All chapters of this book are available for download at courtauld.ac.uk/research/courtauld-books-online Every effort has been made to contact the copyright holders of images reproduced in this publication. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. All rights reserved. Cover Image: Detail of tomb of Jacopo de Carrara © Luca Palozzi. CONTENTS List of Illustrations 5 Notes on Contributors 8 Acknowledgements 10 Introduction 11 JESSICA BARKER Erwin Panofsky’s Tomb Sculpture: Creating the Monument 16 SUSIE NASH I. REASSESSING PANOFSKY From the ‘Pictorial’ to the ‘Statuesque’: Two Romanesque 30 Effigies and the Problem of Plastic Form. SHIRIN FOZI Memory, Presence and the Medieval Tomb 49 ROBERT MARCOUX Panofsky's Tomb Sculpture and the Development of the Early 68 Renaissance Floor Tomb: The Tomb Slab of Lorenzo Trenta by Jacopo della Quercia Reappraised. GEOFFREY NUTTALL II. MONUMENTS AND THEIR VIEWERS Petrarch and Memorial Art: Blurring the Borders between 89 Art Theory and Art Practice in Trecento Italy LUCA PALOZZI Stone and Bone: The Corpse, the Effigy and the Viewer in 113 Late-Medieval Tomb Sculpture JESSICA BARKER Competing for Dextro Cornu Magnum Altaris: Funerary 137 Monuments and Liturgical Seating in English Churches JAMES ALEXANDER CAMERON III. MONUMENTS AND MATERIALS Panofsky: Materials and Condition 155 KIM WOODS Revealed/Concealed: Monumental Brasses on Tomb Chests— 160 The Examples of John I, Duke of Cleves, and Catherine of Bourbon ANN ADAMS Veiling and Unveiling: The Materiality of the Tomb of 184 John I of Avesnes and Philippa of Luxembourg in the Franciscan church of Valenciennes SANNE FREQUIN ‘Nostre sépulture et derrenière maison’: A Reconsideration of the 201 Tomb of Jean de Berry for the Sainte-Chapelle at Bourges, its Inception, Revision and Reconstruction MATTHEW REEVES Deconstructing Donatello and Michelozzo’s Brancacci Tomb 226 MARTHA DUNKELMAN Bibliography 240 Photograph Credits 257 CHAPTER 9 REVEALED/CONCEALED: MONUMENTAL BRASSES ON TOMB CHESTS – JOHN I, DUKE OF CLEVES, AND CATHERINE OF BOURBON, DUCHESS OF GUELDERS ANN ADAMS 9.1 Willem Loemans (?), Tomb of John I, Duke of Cleves, and Elizabeth of Nevers (c.1483). Copper-alloy, engraved plate 219 x 118 cm; each panel 86 x 38 cm, Cleves, St Mary of the Assumption. Two fifteenth-century tombs in the churches of St Mary of the Assumption, Cleves and St Stephen, Nijmegen combine form and materials in a way that challenges customary perceptions of aristocratic commemoration. These tombs consist of monumental brasses covering the top and sides of a tomb chest and commemorate, respectively, John I, Duke of Cleves (1419-81), with his wife, Elizabeth of Nevers (c.1439-83), and Catherine of Bour- bon, Duchess of Guelders (1440-69) (figs 9.1 and 9.2).1 Erwin Panofsky, in Tomb Sculpture, placed the emphasis on sculpted effigies and, amongst 446 illustrations, included only one monumental brass, that of the hand-holding Sir Edward Cerne (†1395) and his wife, Elyne, in St James’ church, Draycot Cerne (Wiltshire), which was used to illustrate the contradiction between a recumbent position and the depiction of marital oath taking.2 Like the majority of surviving monumental brasses, the Cerne brass lies level with the ANN ADAMS | REVEALED/CONCEALED: MONUMENTAL BRASSES ON TOMB CHESTS 161 floor. Monumental floor brasses and tomb chests were depicted by Panofsky as two dis- 9.2 Willem Loemans, tinct genres of memorial, evolving as alternative responses to the risk of tripping posed Tomb of Catherine by the development into high relief of tomb slabs.3 This portrayal of separate paths was of Bourbon (c.1492). Copper-alloy, engraved reinforced by antiquarians who rubbed brasses and then published the illustrations devoid plate 202 x 82 cm; pan- of context. The existence of a sub-group of monumental brasses set on tomb chests was els 68 x 28.5/29.5 cm, Nijmegen, St Stephen. thus obscured, leaving unasked and unanswered the questions of who chose them, why and how frequently. This chapter will start the exploration. Evidence from the Continent alone is limited, due to the destruction wreaked over the centuries by iconoclasm, war and revolution.4 Additional evidence, however, can be found in England where extant examples of monumental brasses are more abundant,5 a comparison justified by close links (marital, political and trade) between England and the Continent in the fifteenth century and sup- ported by the transmission of ideas and techniques demonstrated in other media.6 This chapter will place the case study of the tombs in Cleves and Nijmegen in the context of themes identified through the English experience. THE ENGLISH EXPERIENCE Completion of a comprehensive database of brasses on tomb chests is work in progress but there is no doubt that a tomb chest combined with a monumental brass represented a minority choice for the English nobility. From a total of some 7,000 monumental brasses in the British Isles listed by Mill Stephenson, 304 created between 1300 and 1700 were defined as ‘altar tombs’, of which 91 fell into the fifteenth century (Appendix A).7 What follows comprises preliminary findings and ideas. ANN ADAMS | REVEALED/CONCEALED: MONUMENTAL BRASSES ON TOMB CHESTS 162 The normative choice of a monument for the nobility, as demonstrated by extant re- mains and antiquarian drawings, was a tomb chest with three-dimensional effigies of alabaster, polychromed stone or copper alloy. This clearly proclaimed status through the expense of production and the physical space it occupied. The sides of a tomb chest al- lowed for the display of heraldry or religious imagery whilst, as Nigel Saul has noted, the principal advantage of a tomb chest was that it raised the effigy up, making it the centre of attention.8 This ‘principal advantage’ does not apply to an engraved effigy on the top of a tomb chest which is not visible at a distance. A minority of the nobility chose engraved brasses rather than sculpted effigies. Monu- mental brasses, laid level with the floor or mural, possessed a number of intrinsic ad- vantages: good visibility of the engraved effigies; intricate decorative effects, difficult or impossible to sculpt in the round;9 economical use of church space; a range of sizes and costs. These advantages proved particularly compelling to ecclesiastics, merchants and as- piring nobility.10 However, in seeking a comparative context for the brasses in Cleves and Nijmegen, it is the ‘high nobility’ that is relevant and, for this category, Malcolm Norris identified only four extant brasses and one indent up to the end of the fifteenth century: Elizabeth, Countess of Atholl (Ashford, Kent); Eleanor de Bohun (Westminster Abbey); Thomas Beauchamp, 12th Earl of Warwick, and his wife, Margaret Ferrers (Warwick); Henry Bourchier, Earl of Essex, and wife (Little Easton, Essex); and an indent to Hum- phrey Stafford, Duke of Buckingham, and his Duchess (Pleshey, Essex).11 In addition, there is the lost brass of Thomas of Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester (Westminster Abbey),12 and, of slightly lesser status, the extant brass of Ralph, 3rd Baron Cromwell (†1455/6), Treasurer of England for Henry VI (Tattershall, Lincolnshire).13 The choice of a monumental brass coupled with a tomb chest is more difficult to explain than either a tomb chest or a floor/mural brass, with the combination appearing to dimin- ish the advantages of each: a tomb chest took up valuable space in the church whilst mak- ing engraved effigies very difficult to see. Although cost was a principal driver in increas- ing the popularity of brasses in the fifteenth century, it can be dismissed fairly quickly as a factor in the choice of a monumental brass on a tomb chest. The overall cost of a monu- ment was affected by a number of factors, in particular availability and processing of raw materials, manufacture and transport. A brass on a tomb chest (depending on the size and quality of the brass) may have been cheaper than copper-alloy effigies but not necessar- ily cheaper