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DOI Artikel:Kalinowski, Lech: The English Romanesque art exhibition at the Hayward Gallery: An iconographical gloss
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3. Virgin and Child, tympanum, c. 1140. St Mary’s Church, Fownhope
Herefordshire
throne on which sihe i,s iseated. If this i:s true, it
would be a lyre-liike throne. However a deta-
iled comparisom with the lyre-backed throne of
the Virgin Enthroned at St Demetrius, Thessalo-
niki (destroyed in 1917), aissigned by Robin Cor-
mack to the 5th cen tury, and with its ©astern and
western derivatives, is not comclusive 7. It is ea-
sier to understalnd this enigm a tic element as
the residue of a „double”, that iis to say, ain egiht-
-shaped mandorla (German Aćhtermandorla), re-
duced to its upper, ”heavenly” half 8.
A sitmilar but fuli double mandorla can be
seen enclosiing the seated Hodegetria, without
nimbus, with the Child on her left airm, in St
Augustineis Commentary on Psalms, c. 1130—
—1140, from (?) Eynsham Abbey, Oxford,shire,
in Oxford, Bodleian Libr ary, MS Harley 269 (N°
28). The motif of the mandorla transferred froim
the image of Christ in Majesty, to whom it is
due, to the representation of the Virgin and Child,
underlines that Mary is Mother of God, Theoto-
kos 9. This kind of depictiom seemis to justify the
anomaly of the cruciform half-nimbus placed
over the head the Virgin in the Fownhope tym-
panum, perhaps introduced to suggeist the idea
of Mary’s coimpassion and co-redemptiom. A si-
milar example of such tramsferences from Christ
to Mary can be found on the Anglo-Saxon walrus
7 R. S. C o r m a c k, The Mosaic Decoration of S.
Demetrios, Thessaloniki; a reexamination in the light of
the drawings of W. S. George (Papers of the British
School ait Athens, LXIV (1963)), pp. 17—53, Plis 3 ani
<• See also A. Cutler, Transfigurations. Studies in the
Dynamics of Byzantine Iconography, Pennsylvania Sta-
te University [1975], pp. 5—53: The Lyre-Backed Throne;
J. D. Breckenridge, Christ on the Lyre-Backed
ivory, first half of llth ceinrtury, in the Victoria
and Albert Museuim A. 5—1935 (N° 178), whe-
re the throne of Mary, who hais no nimlbus, is
replaoed by the triple rainbow, normally reser-
ved only for Christ, and analogous to the one in
the Bury Bibie, c. 1135, Cambridge, Corpus
Ghriisti College, MS 2, p. 28lv (N° 33). The image
of the Virgi:i iin a mandorla of light recurs on
a eection of an iv>ory sitaff or a handle, last qu-
arter of 12th century, in the Metropolitan Museum
of Art, The Cloisters Collection (N° 215), with
Christ seated frontally on the right knee of Mary.
It is charaeteristic of English representations
of the Hodegetria of the period that the Child,
seated sideways, does not rest on his mother’s
knee but is supported morę or less freely by one
(N° 28 and N° 178) or both hainds of Mary (N°
153, N° 209 and N° 229). In the case of the Ycirk
Virgin (N° 153) and the walrus ivory group in
the Victoria and Albert Museum (N° 209) (Fig.
4) (the good state of preservation of the latter
maikeis it p-ossible to; restore properly the missing
part of the right hand of the York Virgin) the
comiposition is atypical in so far as the Child,
turned to the left, rests on the right hand of
Mary, over her left knee, an arranigement an-
ticipated in Byzantine art by the famous ivo:ry
Eleusa, 9th century, in the Walters Art Gallery
Throne (Dumbarton Oaks Papers, 34—35), pp. 247—260,
here p. 250.
8 H. B. Meyer SJ, Zur Symbolik fruhmittelalter-
licher Majestasbilder (Das Munster, 14 (1961)), pp. 73—88,
here 76—88.
9 A. G r a b a r, „The Virgin in a Mandorla of Light”
[in:] Late Classical and Mediaeral Studies in Honor of
Albert Mathias Friend, Jr., ed. by K. Weitzmann,
Princeton [1955], pp. 305—311.
148
Herefordshire
throne on which sihe i,s iseated. If this i:s true, it
would be a lyre-liike throne. However a deta-
iled comparisom with the lyre-backed throne of
the Virgin Enthroned at St Demetrius, Thessalo-
niki (destroyed in 1917), aissigned by Robin Cor-
mack to the 5th cen tury, and with its ©astern and
western derivatives, is not comclusive 7. It is ea-
sier to understalnd this enigm a tic element as
the residue of a „double”, that iis to say, ain egiht-
-shaped mandorla (German Aćhtermandorla), re-
duced to its upper, ”heavenly” half 8.
A sitmilar but fuli double mandorla can be
seen enclosiing the seated Hodegetria, without
nimbus, with the Child on her left airm, in St
Augustineis Commentary on Psalms, c. 1130—
—1140, from (?) Eynsham Abbey, Oxford,shire,
in Oxford, Bodleian Libr ary, MS Harley 269 (N°
28). The motif of the mandorla transferred froim
the image of Christ in Majesty, to whom it is
due, to the representation of the Virgin and Child,
underlines that Mary is Mother of God, Theoto-
kos 9. This kind of depictiom seemis to justify the
anomaly of the cruciform half-nimbus placed
over the head the Virgin in the Fownhope tym-
panum, perhaps introduced to suggeist the idea
of Mary’s coimpassion and co-redemptiom. A si-
milar example of such tramsferences from Christ
to Mary can be found on the Anglo-Saxon walrus
7 R. S. C o r m a c k, The Mosaic Decoration of S.
Demetrios, Thessaloniki; a reexamination in the light of
the drawings of W. S. George (Papers of the British
School ait Athens, LXIV (1963)), pp. 17—53, Plis 3 ani
<• See also A. Cutler, Transfigurations. Studies in the
Dynamics of Byzantine Iconography, Pennsylvania Sta-
te University [1975], pp. 5—53: The Lyre-Backed Throne;
J. D. Breckenridge, Christ on the Lyre-Backed
ivory, first half of llth ceinrtury, in the Victoria
and Albert Museuim A. 5—1935 (N° 178), whe-
re the throne of Mary, who hais no nimlbus, is
replaoed by the triple rainbow, normally reser-
ved only for Christ, and analogous to the one in
the Bury Bibie, c. 1135, Cambridge, Corpus
Ghriisti College, MS 2, p. 28lv (N° 33). The image
of the Virgi:i iin a mandorla of light recurs on
a eection of an iv>ory sitaff or a handle, last qu-
arter of 12th century, in the Metropolitan Museum
of Art, The Cloisters Collection (N° 215), with
Christ seated frontally on the right knee of Mary.
It is charaeteristic of English representations
of the Hodegetria of the period that the Child,
seated sideways, does not rest on his mother’s
knee but is supported morę or less freely by one
(N° 28 and N° 178) or both hainds of Mary (N°
153, N° 209 and N° 229). In the case of the Ycirk
Virgin (N° 153) and the walrus ivory group in
the Victoria and Albert Museum (N° 209) (Fig.
4) (the good state of preservation of the latter
maikeis it p-ossible to; restore properly the missing
part of the right hand of the York Virgin) the
comiposition is atypical in so far as the Child,
turned to the left, rests on the right hand of
Mary, over her left knee, an arranigement an-
ticipated in Byzantine art by the famous ivo:ry
Eleusa, 9th century, in the Walters Art Gallery
Throne (Dumbarton Oaks Papers, 34—35), pp. 247—260,
here p. 250.
8 H. B. Meyer SJ, Zur Symbolik fruhmittelalter-
licher Majestasbilder (Das Munster, 14 (1961)), pp. 73—88,
here 76—88.
9 A. G r a b a r, „The Virgin in a Mandorla of Light”
[in:] Late Classical and Mediaeral Studies in Honor of
Albert Mathias Friend, Jr., ed. by K. Weitzmann,
Princeton [1955], pp. 305—311.
148