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Carved columns

Column
1200-1250 (made)
Artist/Maker
Place of origin

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.

Object details

Categories
Object type
Parts
This object consists of 2 parts.

  • Architecture
  • Fragment
TitleCarved columns
Materials and techniques
Walnut wood
Brief description
Carved column, walnut wood, Southern Italy (Calabria?) or Sicily, 1150-1200
Physical description
Carved Column, walnut wood.
Dimensions
  • Without base height: 216.9cm
  • Diameter: 27.9cm
  • Including base frame weight: 303kg
Object history
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.
Historical context
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.
Subjects depicted
Summary
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.
Bibliographic references
  • List of Objects in the Art Division, South Kensington Museum acquired during the Year 1886. London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1887. pp.32
  • Tavernor Perry, J. 'Some remains of a wooden ambone in the Victoria and Albert Museum', in Burlington Magazine. XXV. 1914. pp. 291-4
  • Toesca, P. Storia dell' Arte Italiana. I. 1927. pp.1143
  • Longhurst, M.H. 'Quatre colonees avec chapiteaux sculptes du XIIe. Siecle.' In Cahiers d'Art. 1930. pp. 85-90
  • Steinburg, L.H. 'A portrait of Constance of Sicily', in Journal of the Warburg Institute. I. 1938. pp. 249-61
  • Venturi, A. Storia dell' Arte Italiano III. 1904. pp. 379
  • De Francovich, G. 'Wiligelmo da Modena e gli Inizii dell Scultura Romanica in Francia e in Spagna' in Rivista del R. Istituo d'Archeologia e Storia dell Arte. VII. 1940. pp. 257
  • Pope-Hennessy, John, assisted by Ronald Lightbown. Catalogue of Italian Sculpture in the Victoria and Albert Museum. London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1964. 2 vols. vol.1, pp.7-10, cats 4-9, vol.3, figs 7-20
  • Arnoldi, Francesco Negri. 'Commentari' Scultura Italiana al Victoria and Albert Museum I & II. anno XXI, June- July. 1970. pp. 19- 23
  • Arnoldi, Francesco Negri. 'Materiali per lo studis della scultura trecentesca in Sicilia II.' in Prospettina LII. 1988. pp. 60-62. fig. 36-41.
  • Williamson, Paul. Catalogue of Romanesque Sculpture. Victoria & Albert Museum, London 1983, p. 69
  • Zanichelli, Giuseppa. 'Le quattro colonne lignee del V&A e la cultura di etá angioina in area salernitana', in Paolo Peduto, Rosa Fiorillo and Angela Corolla (eds), Salerno. Una sede ducale della Langobardia meridionale (Spoleto, 2013), pp. 207-218
Collection
Accession number
269-1886

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Record createdFebruary 12, 2004
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