ARTIST UNKNOWN, GREAT BRITAIN, LATE 19TH CENTURY THE THREE MARYS AT THE EMPTY TOMB, CIRCA 1890

The Pre-Raphaelite style which flourished in the 1850s had a long half-life, persisting well into the twentieth-century. These three panels are a fine example of the 'second generation' of Pre-Raphaelite medievalism, and probably date from the 1880s or 1890s . The work centres on the imposing, hieratic figure of the angel guarding Christ's empty tomb, with the sorrowing three Marys on the left and the sepulchre and a serpent-encircled Tree of Life on the right. The spandrels on each side of the thick golden arch which frames the narrative scene are filled with a celestial choir and orchestra with golden haloes and trumpets. The work is not a triptych - the line of the arch is only continuous if the individual canvases are separated - but was probably originally contained within wooden panelling, quite possibly in an ecclesiastical setting. The identity of the painter has not been confirmed, though there are affinities with extant paintings by Edward Frampton (1850-1929). A stained glass artist, and father of the better-known E.R. (Edward Reginald), Frampton senior is known to have undertaken painting for church interiors such as St Oswald's, Backford.¹

1. 'Edward Frampton, 1850-1929, master glass-painter', Journal of the British Society of Master Glass Painters, no. 11, 1953, pp. 70-71; Raymond Richards, Old Cheshire Churches, Batsford:London, 1947, pp. 33-8