ENGLISH, PROBABLY NOTTINGHAM, SECOND HALF 15TH CENTURY | RELIEF WITH THE ADORATION OF THE MAGI AND THE SHEPHERDS

Nottingham, in the English Midlands, was the principal centre of production of alabasters in England from the 13th through to the 16th centuries, although they were also worked in Burton-on-Trent, Chellaston, York, and even as far south as London. The widespread distribution of Nottingham alabasters throughout Europe, even as far as Iceland, confirms that they were carved both for the domestic market, but also for export. 

The present alabaster panel, which retains much polychromy and gilding, would originally have been part of an altarpiece with scenes of the Joys of the Virgin. This theme is most famously depicted in the Swansea Altarpiece, one of few Nottinghams to have survived in its original frame, now in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum (inv. no. A89-1919). The present composition is mirrored in comparison to the Adoration panel in the Swansea Altarpiece, however, and is more elaborate, as it includes the smaller figures of shepherds alongside the more imposing figures of the Magi. It bears closest comparison to an Adoration of the Magi published by Cheetham (op. cit. no. 110), which shows the Virgin with a similar headdress, and the sleeping Joseph in the bottom left corner. In Cheetham's 2003 work (op. cit., pp. 82-88) all known versions of Adorations of the Magi are listed; although Cheetham is aware of 104 examples of the 'Adoration of the Magi, with Mary and Joseph (fifteenth century)', he only lists five versions of the 'Adoration of the Magi and the Shepherds, with Mary and Joseph', indicating that the present lot was a rare composition in the oeuvre of the alabaster carvers. 

RELATED LITERATURE

F. Cheetham, English Medieval Alabaster: with a Catalogue of the Collection in the Victoria and Albert Museum, Oxford, 1984, pp. 180-188; F. Cheetham, Alabaster Images of Medieval England, Woodbridge, 2003, pp. 83-88