Alabaster panel depicting St James the Less. English, 1440-1460.

The panel has a plain border on each vertical side and a base showing three facets in front. The haloed figure of the saint is represented with a bifid beard. He wears a gown, and a cloak draped from his right shoulder. He holds a fuller's club, his emblem, in his right hand. In his left he holds a scroll painted with the phrase (reading upwards) from the Appostles' Creed more usually assigned to St. Bartholomew: 'Ascendit ad celos sedet ad dextram dei patris omnipotentis' (He ascended into heaven [and] sits on the right hand of God the Father Almighty).

A crack across the top of the panel has been repaired. The top right-hand corner has been repaired with new alabaster. The upper background is gilt, with the remains of gesso knobs. The green foreground is decorated with the usual daisy pattern. Red paint remains in the lining of the saint's cloak. The halo is green with alternating straight and curved lines separated by red spots. The capital letter of the inscription and the sprigs are red; the rest of it is black. The hair and beard of the saint, the borders of his robe and cloak and the sprigs that decorate them are gilt. Details of the eyes are painted. The club is light brown. The back of the panel bears two lead-plugged holes, one with latten wire attached.

Given by Art Fund

From a church either in the town of Zamora in Spain or in the province of Zamora. One of the 12 panels of the Apostles' Creed Altarpiece. Latterly in the possession of G. Thomas. Gift to the Museum from the National Art Collections Fund in 1922.

This Apostle probably comes from the upper part of a rood-screen and is one of twelve panels in the Museum said to have come from a church in the town or province of Zamora, Spain (inv.nos. A.148 to 159-1922). The Apostles would have stood in a line just below the rood (a large figure of the crucified Christ). Each figure is identified by the inscription on his scroll and by a specific attribute, or symbol. Here St James the Less carries his emblem of a fullers club in his right hand.

The carving of alabaster, mostly quarried in Tutbury and Chellaston near Nottingham, took on industrial proportions in England between the middle of the 14th and the early 16th centuries. The market for altarpieces and smaller devotional images was a large one. It included not only religious foundations but also the merchant classes. Many hundreds of English alabasters were exported, some as far afield as Iceland and Santiago de Compostela in north-west Spain.
Alabaster - a form of gypsum - is a comparatively soft material and is therefore easy to carve. It can also be polished. Its natural colour was especially useful for the representation of faces and flesh, which would normally remain unpainted.

A.153-1922