Carved column, walnut wood, Southern Italy (Calabria?) or Sicily, 1150-1200

Carved Column, walnut wood.

The column has a circular shaft and a squared capital. The four faces of the capital show two peacocks face to face, the prophet Jeremiah carrying a scroll inscribed 'IFREMIA', a fruit tree, and a tree in flower. On the shaft of the column below the annulet are two flying birds pecking at hunches of grapes, a bird pecking at a bunch of grapes, a rosette, and a bird pecking at a bunch of grapes. The abacus is decorated on two sides with acanthus foliage and a rosette, and on the remaining sides with a chevron and diaper motif, and the astragal is carved on three sides with strips of acanthus foliage separated by a decorated band, and on the fourth side with a chevron motif.

The height of this and the companion columns appears to have been reduced at the base. The column was originally pigmented, and, like its companions, shows traces of red, green and yellow paint and white priming. The couchant lion attached to the base of the column, although undoubtedly part of the original ensemble, was only fixed in this position in 1949: its lower parts are rotted by damp and its right foreleg is missing.

It is not clear where these columns were made. They are certainly Southern Italian or Sicilian, and may be from Calabria. The V&A acquired this column in 1886 from G. Pepe in Naples.

Church furnishings carved from wood from this date are very rare, partly because wood does not survive as well as stone, but also because stones such as marble were seen as the more prestigious material, and thus better suited to a church interior.

Church furnishings carved from wood surviving from the twelfth of thirteenth centuries in Italy are extremely rare. These columns appear to have originally belonged to a pulpit or a choir screen.

269-1886