Page:VCH Norfolk 2.djvu/585

 MEDIAEVAL PAINTING overcoming the monster with his lance ; the view is borne out by the circumstance that the champion is represented as having drawn his sword, and he is preparing to deal a heavy blow with it. The ornamentation is profuse, the red cross of St. George glows on the breast of the saint, and a series of small shields with the same device are apparent. The Lybian princess Cleodolinda kneels on a rock, to the right holding a lamb by a ribbon. In a cavern underneath her are seen the progeny of the scaly monster. ... At the top of the picture appear the King and Queen of Selene, her parents, as if looking out from a tower within the city. . . . Beneath the painting is part of an inscription: "Pray for the soul of ," which may have recorded the death of the donor, but it is to be regretted that the name is now irrecoverably lost. . . . The extreme height of the painting is 17 feet and the width 9 feet 9I inches. . . . The parish authorities have thought fit to oil and restore it by repainting some portions.' The description would apply almost as well to the Witton painting, which is ascribed to the beginning of the fifteenth century. This at Norwich must have been executed towards the latter part of that century, perhaps in the reign of Edward IV. The cult of St. George flourished in Norwich over a considerable period, and the Guild named after him had great influence and power in the internal affairs of that city. It would take up too much space, and be needless to note further instances of the wall paintings of the fifteenth century, especially as the art of painting received a greater development upon the screens of the East Anglian churches than upon their walls in this period, and it is to these rather than to the wall paintings we must turn to watch its further progress. Before doing so, however, and as an introduction to the subject of the screen paintings, it is necessary to give some consideration to the traces of the painter's art to be found on church furniture of the latter part of the four- teenth century yet existing in Norfolk. For instance, in the church of St. Michael at Plea in Norwich, worked up in the modern reredos of the altar, are to be seen portions of two painted panels representing the Betrayal and the Crucifixion. The figures are delicately executed, and the back- grounds are of stamped and gilded gesso work. The date of these fragments may very well be late in the century just named, and they are possibly con- temporary with a work of far more consequence, viz., a ' table ' or reredos preserved in the cathedral church of the same city (PI. iii-v). This is a work of capital importance, and if ever any full history, or one worthy the name, is written on medieval painting in this country, the description and illustration of it will occupy a prominent place, owing to the extreme rarity of such remains, and, it should be added, the beauty of the example in question. Mutilated and battered, it was rescued from base uses in 1847, and is now taken care of in the ambulatory of the apse of the cathedral. Formed of oak boards, it is framed into five panels enclosed by mouldings, a flat band with further mouldings surrounding the whole. All the upper portion is wanting. The subjects painted in the panels, commencing on the left, are the Flagella- tion, our Lord bearing the Cross, the Crucifixion, the Resurrection, and the Ascension. The centre panel showing the Crucifixion was taller than the others, rising above the straight upper line of the frame, the band and mould- ings of which, no doubt, were carried round it. The compositions are 539