A Mid 16thC Tudor Period Carved Oak Rood Screen Fragment c.1550

Origin: English
Period: Tudor
Provenance: Shaw Edwards Antiques 2013
Date: c.1550
Height: 25”
Width: 40.75”
Depth: 1.5” or 19” on stand

The remarkable and substantial English carved oak ecclesiastical fragment, believed to have formed part of a church rood screen, the whole constructed from broad, heavy oak boards being richly applied and carved with late Gothic ornament, the upper register formed as a continuous pierced frieze of quatrefoil tracery enclosing alternating foliate and geometric devices over a series of slender applied uprights to scrolling cusped forms, terminating amongst an unusually vigorous band of pierced and carved foliage and small flowerheads, retaining a wonderfully dry, pale and weathered surface and now presented upon a later, specially made detachable oak trestle stand.

The fragment survives in evocatively untouched country-house condition, with losses, old breaks, worming, splitting, wear and numerous areas of degradation entirely consistent with considerable age and architectural use. Some elements of the carved tracery are incomplete and there are old repairs and later strengthening battens to the reverse. The substantial reverse, adze/tool marks, broad boards and construction are particularly persuasive of its architectural origins. The later oak display stand is removable and allows the fragment to be shown as an extraordinary sculptural object or it can of course be wall hung.

Rood screens separated the nave from the chancel of medieval English churches and were frequently among their most elaborately carved wooden furnishings, supporting or visually relating to the great rood; the representation of Christ upon the Cross, commonly accompanied by the Virgin and St John. The survival of such woodwork is particularly poignant because of the successive waves of iconoclasm accompanying the English Reformation under Henry VIII and, more destructively, Edward VI, when rood lofts, images and other elements associated with medieval Catholic worship were ordered to be removed or destroyed. It would be difficult to prove that this particular fragment was dismantled specifically during the Reformation, but its late Gothic vocabulary and ecclesiastical character make a Tudor-period date entirely plausible.

An exceptionally atmospheric piece of early English carved woodwork, possessing all the irregularity, decay and sculptural presence one hopes to find in a genuine architectural survivor. Removed from its original context, the fragment has become almost an abstract work of art: five centuries of carving, wear and loss compressed into a single monumental panel.