The Swansea Altarpiece

Carved images

The 15th-century Swansea Altarpiece is one of very few medieval altarpieces to survive in Britain. It consists of a series of pictures carved from alabaster, which read from left to right like a strip cartoon.

The four smaller panels tell the story of the Virgin - first we have the Annunciation and the Adoration of the Magi, showing Mary as the Mother of God. Working right, we see the matching scenes of Christ's Assumption into Heaven, where we can see only his feet as he soars out of shot, and the Virgin's own Assumption, combined with her triumphal Coronation by the Trinity. The central panel also shows the Trinity - God the Father, as an old man, the Son on the cross, and the Holy Spirit (the Dove), which has now been lost, leaving only a hole at the top of the cross where he would have been fixed.

The whole narrative is framed by St John the Baptist and St John the Evangelist. The Baptist holds a lamb and wears his traditional camel robe - you can see its head and hooves hanging down. The Evangelist has a chalice, from which emerges a tiny dragon, and a palm.

These saints were two of the most popular in pre-Reformation England, and with others, like St Catherine and St Margaret, would have been as familiar to the viewer as their own family. A Somerset will from the period refers specifically to St John the Evangelist, 'whom [the author] ha[s] always worshipped and loved...'. Each saint was depicted with his or her symbols, which provided a short cut to recognition - St John the Baptist with his lamb, for example. They formed a language that every late medieval churchgoer would have understood.

This altarpiece therefore gives us an enticing glimpse of the lost world of Catholic England - hidden from us by the veil of the Reformation and of intervening years. This world was one that might be more familiar to Latin-American worshippers than to modern English people.

Churches were ablaze with colour, and gold highlights glittered in the light of many candles. These places of worship were stuffed with devotional images, which were adorned on festival days and adored on others. The Swansea Altarpiece retains more of its original colouring than most other surviving alabaster panels, but is still really a shadow of the glorious object it must once have been.

Setting and origins

The Swansea Altarpiece, showing The Crucifixion  © Altarpieces were designed to stand on or just behind the altars in medieval churches. Roger Martyn in the 16th century described the altarpiece behind the High Altar at Long Melford as, 'a goodly mount carved very artificially with the story of Christ's passion all being fair gilt...'.

Almost every church would also have had side altars, dedicated to individual saints or, quite commonly, to the Virgin, often in a Lady chapel named after her. Each of these would have required some sort of altarpiece. It seems likely that the Swansea Altarpiece stood originally on a Lady altar, or just possibly on the high altar of a church dedicated to the Virgin or the Trinity.

The panel of the Trinity on the Swansea Altarpiece particularly provides food for thought during the celebration of the Mass, with its graphic representation of Christ's body on the cross and his blood flowing down to be collected by angels - in chalices that would not have been dissimilar to those used during the Mass at that time. Of course, Catholic England believed in the real presence of Christ himself in the Mass, and altarpieces like this were designed to remind the worshipper of the fact. They played a key role in the theatre of late medieval religion.

Closed or covered during Lent, altarpieces like this one would be flung open, or triumphantly unveiled in all their colourful glory, at Easter or on other holy days. Although the Swansea Altarpiece is hinged into three sections, enabling it to stand on an altar, the reverse is rough and it is therefore unlikely that it was designed to fold up like many other altarpieces from the same period. It would therefore have been covered with a curtain, or veil, as necessary.

We do not know who commissioned the Swansea Altarpiece. It may have been a wealthy individual, a group (possibly a guild), or a religious order. There are no firm indications at all - no figures of donors with useful inscriptions to identify them, nor coats of arms. Although we might wonder if the presence of two saints called John is a clue, the same pairing appears on another alabaster altarpiece depicting scenes from the Virgin's life - the so-called 'Joys of the Virgin'.

This anonymity is typical of 15th-century alabaster panels, which were churned out in large numbers, with very similar designs and few distinguishing features. In the V&A's own collections are other alabaster versions of the Adoration of the Magi, for example, which are almost identical to the scene on the Swansea Altarpiece, even down to the arm of the king who points out the star, and the hunched figure of Joseph, huddled in the corner.

Medieval alabaster

Detail of the Swansea Altarpiece, showing Adoration of the Magi  © The medieval alabaster industry in England seems to have been based primarily in Nottingham, and the panels were clearly popular both at home and abroad. Examples exist as far afield as Iceland, Croatia and Spain. The surviving wooden settings seem to be similar as well, indicating that such altarpieces were exported whole.

People tend to think of the medieval world as being intensely local, but actually it was also very international. A common Christendom under the Pope, and the universal language of Latin, provided a form of European community long before that of the 20th century. Merchants teemed back and forth between England and continental Europe, importing tapestries, printed books and other luxury goods, while exporting lead, tin and of course alabaster panels and individual figures.

During the Reformation many of the alabasters from English churches were defaced or completely destroyed. Thanks to the trade across the Channel, however, and luckily for us, they survive all over Europe, and can tell us something of the splendour of the pre-Reformation Church in England.

Alabaster, largely obtained from the quarries of Derbyshire and Staffordshire, was a wonderful material for carving, as it is soft and easily shaped. It also has the most beautiful translucency, which shines through the colours and gilt applied to it. The Swansea Altarpiece is one of the finest surviving examples of alabaster carving in the world, and shows us clearly why medieval churches across Europe could not get enough of these beautiful objects.

Did you know...

... that the Swansea Altarpiece is so called because it belonged to Lord Swansea for many years before it was bought by the V&A Museum in 1919?

... that there are at least nine other recorded examples of English alabaster altarpieces depicting the Joys of the Virgin, and that they survive in Poland, France, Spain and Italy?

... that in the Middle Ages there were actually seven Joys of the Virgin (including the Visitation to her cousin Elizabeth, for example) and also seven Sorrows (such as meeting Christ on his way to Calvary)? No surviving alabaster altarpieces depict all seven Joys.

... that each alabaster panel, and the three sections of the wooden housing of the Swansea Altarpiece, all bear the same incised mark - a shallow triangle - showing they were designed to fit together?

... that altarpieces could be made from painted panels, carved stone, alabaster, or wood - or could be painted directly onto the wall behind the altar?

... that individuals could have small altarpieces made for them to be used for private devotion within the home? Many of these folded up for convenience when travelling.

... that the St John's chalice and dragon relate to a challenge made to him by a high priest of Diana, at Ephesus, to drink a poisoned cup? The palm was the one he carried in front of the Virgin's bier at her funeral, and is therefore a particularly appropriate emblem for this altarpiece.

Find out more

Books

The Stripping of the Altars - Traditional Religion in England 1400-1580 by E Duffy (New Haven and London, 1992)

English Medieval Alabasters by F Cheetham (Oxford, 1984)

England's Iconoclasts by M Aston (Oxford, 1988)

The English Reformation Revised by C Haigh (Cambridge, 1987)

The Oxford Dictionary of Saints by D Farmer (Oxford, 1997)

Church and Society in Late Medieval England by RN Swanson (Oxford, 1989)

About the author

Eleanor Townsend worked as Assistant Curator on the V&A exhibition Late Gothic Art in England from 1400 to 1547, tracing the development of visual culture in England to the beginnings of the Reformation. Her specialist area is the medieval period.