Tuesday 4 August 2020

Pregnant cows and angels' wings

Another country church. If you are bored with my visits to them, skip this post. If not, read on.

I went to Hatherop on the Cotswolds on a rather hot and sunny afternoon. This was my fifth church for the day, and I was just beginning to get a wee bit saturated with ecclesiastical architecture and mortuary monuments. You can have enough for one day, you know. Still, I thought this one might be special. It was only a hunch; but I was proved right. I discovered some fabulous Victorian carving in marble. 

Did I say I was getting a bit frazzled from too much sunshine? I parked Fiona in a limp fashion, then noticed that I was right outside the village primary school, and 3.00pm was approaching fast. Oh dear. I'd get cursed, pinching a space that a local mum might want. With a weary sigh, I fired up Fiona again, and reparked fifty yards up the road. But I was rewarded for the extra effort. Fiona was now in welcome shade. And I was right next to the gate leading to the church. I was soon through it.

However, there was no church in sight. Not at first, anyway. Then the path turned to the right, and I could see the church three hundred yards away. 


Immediately to my left was a large recreation field. Some young workmen were improving the children's play area, and they looked up. They must have wondered what I was doing. Did they know that the church was closed and locked, and that I was wasting my time? If they did, they said nothing, and let me walk on. I'd feel very silly if it was shut, and I'd had a hot walk to no avail.   

Hatherop church got a little closer. Beyond the recreation field was a field for grazing cows. You could be matey and join them, but a notice warned you that they were 'heavily pregnant'. 


Was this a polite way of saying 'don't upset the cows, or you'll have one or more births to deal with'? I remember seeing a late-1970s episode of the TV north-country vet drama series All Creatures Great And Small, where one of the young, inexperienced vets had to help a cow deliver a calf that was awkwardly positioned for birth. It involved inserting an arm fully into the cow's rear end, to grasp the calf's legs and pull it gently out. Yes, I could just see myself doing that! Not.

Walking on, I entered the churchyard, and resolved to ignore any bellows from the field. The cows would just have to take some paracetamol or something.

I walked around the church. As you can see, it wasn't built on the lines usual for an English country church. At first the tower looked a bit French-château to me. Un-English, at least.


Just over an adjacent wall was a old country house complex that had become a private school. It had its own distinctive architecture. 


My guess would be that whoever built that country house also built the church, as the styles were so similar.

Right then. Was the church open? Oh, it was. Inside it was very spacious, and cool, and quiet. More grandiose than you'd expect for a country church. Plenty of light. But in one corner was a dark, mystical chapel. Rather medieval, though clearly modern. Gated, but the gate was open.


It contained only one marble monument. But a spectacularly carved one. A woman, shown conventionally young - Lady Barbara de Mauley (1789-1844), with female angels at her head and at her feet. They were all beautifully carved. I'll start with Lady Barbara herself. 


What extraordinary skill in the carving! It wasn't just the delicate rendition of the flesh - her face, and especially her hands - the sculptor had perfectly reproduced every fold and crease in her clothes and bedding. It was all incredibly lifelike. She seemed to be asleep, gently breathing, and could awake at any moment. That she would never wake again was obvious from the attitudes of the two angels. The one at Lady Barbara's feet was taking it hard, really grieving, earnestly praying to heaven for an impossible revival. She too was exquisitely carved.


But I thought the angel at Lady Barbara's head was showing a more complex emotion. She knew the woman was gone beyond recall, and that praying could not bring her back. 


What was she really thinking? Can one know what an angel thinks? Did the sculptor?

The superb quality of the carving made me keen to find out who did it. Remembering to stop off at a spot where I could get some mobile internet, I found this web page: https://churchmonumentssociety.org/monument-of-the-month/lady-barbara-de-mauley-st-nicholas-hatherop. Lady Barbara's monument had got a write-up by the Church Monuments Society in 2012, and this went as follows (I'm sure they won't mind my bringing it to wider attention):

One of the most beautiful memorial monuments in Gloucestershire is that to Barbara, Lady de Mauley by the Italian sculptor Raffaelle Monti in St Nicholas Church, Hatherop. The church which was rebuilt for Lord de Mauley in 1854-5 by Henry Clutton incorporates a separate Gothic Revival mortuary chapel specifically for his wife’s monument. Lady de Mauley died in 1844 and the monument was executed in 1848. Originally buried at Canford, Dorset her body was moved to St Nicholas at the same time that Lord de Mauley rebuilt Hatherop Castle which is situated close by. Hatherop Castle was left to Lady de Mauley by her grandfather, Sir John Webb, when he died in 1797.

The monument and chapel are both influenced by the Gothic Revival movement of the time. The white marble recumbent sculpture depicts Lady de Mauley in the pose of ‘not dead but asleep’ so beloved in the 1800’s. Wearing a Victorian neo-medieval dress she lies serenely, carved in beautiful natural detail, on a mock Gothic tomb-chest which is flanked by two free-standing kneeling ‘guardian angels’ one gazing down at her while the other looks to Heaven. The tomb-chest as well as the two plinths bear inscriptions. Lady Barbara died at the age of 55 but is portrayed as a young woman. Is this a reference to the medieval practice of showing women at an idealised age of thirty, the age at which it was believed Christ died and hence would be at the Resurrection? Or did Lord de Mauley wish to remember his wife at the time they married? It is unlikely that Monti ever met Lady de Mauley but there was a portrait by the fashionable painter John Hoppner (1758-1810) which could have been used to obtain her likeness. Lady de Mauley was the daughter and sole heiress of the 5th Earl of Shaftesbury. She married William Ponsonby, the 3rd son of the 3rd Earl of Bessborough, in 1814 when she was 25. When he was created a Baron at the time of the Coronation of Queen Victoria in 1838 he revived the Mauley Barony in his wife’s family, that was created by writ in 1295 but became extinct in 1415. He added the ‘de’ for Gothic effect thus returning the name to its original form.

The monument, the chapel and the sculptor are all of interest. Although rosaries were not uncommon on monuments in the Middle Ages they disappeared from monuments at the time of the Reformation along with other ‘popish’ symbols. It is therefore surprising to find that Lady de Mauley is shown with a cross and in her left hand holds a rosary, which may be unique in a monument of this time. It is known that the de Mauleys were ‘high church’ and Hatherop was a centre of Roman Catholicism between the late 17th and early 19th centuries. When Sir John Webb was living at Hatherop Castle it contained a Roman Catholic chapel. So it is possible that the de Mauleys may have requested a rosary; alternatively it may have been due to the Italian sculptor not appreciating English sensibilities. On her left arm Lady de Mauley wears a bracelet depicting a serpent biting its tail. The Ponsonby crest does contain a serpent but here it is more likely to be the well known symbol for eternity, representing immortality, which was fashionable at the time.

The mortuary chapel too, is unusual. It was designed in a flamboyant French Gothic style most likely by William Burges. It is also likely that he was responsible for the frieze that extends around the chapel featuring leaves, flowers and some motifs associated with Lady de Mauley. Above Lady de Mauley the frieze contains the letter ‘B’ for Barbara and to its right is shown a butterfly. The butterfly represents the soul rising to Heaven and occurs on a number of Victorian memorials and paintings. The frieze also contains a number of towers which are an allusion to the patron saint of Lady de Mauley, St Barbara. This is another Gothic Revival feature as there are examples from the medieval age where the patron saint of the deceased appears on monuments.

Although the existence of St Barbara is of doubtful veracity her cult became popular in the Middle Ages especially in France. It was claimed that Barbara’s father imprisoned her in a tower so no man could see her. She subsequently converted to Christianity and eventually died a virgin-martyr. As a punishment for his cruelty her father was struck dead by lightening. This led to St Barbara becoming the patron saint of those who could suffer sudden death such as miners and gunners.

The sculptor Raffaelle Monti was born in Switzerland in 1818, brought up in Milan and died in London in 1881. He was a member of the Risorgimento (the Resurgence) a movement formed to fight for independence of Italy from the Austrians. As a senior officer of the National Guard of Milan he fled to England in 1848 when the Italians were defeated at the Battle of Custozza. He carved the de Mauley monument in the same year. He had visited England prior to this when he carved the ‘The Veiled Vestal’, a young woman wearing a veil, for the 6th Duke of Devonshire. This statue is on display at Chatsworth House and was instrumental in bringing him to the attention of the British public. Like many of the sculptors of his time as well as accepting commissions for sculptures, he designed for many well known companies such as Garrards. Parian statuettes and busts of his designs were produced by Copeland and Wedgwood. In 1860 he assigned the production of his ‘Veiled Vestal’ to Copeland from which they produced the bust known as ‘The Bride’. Also like a number of other sculptors he found it difficult to make a living, becoming impoverished towards the end of his life and having to sell his tools to raise money.

The enduring appeal of his work can be gauged by the fact that an original Parian bust of ‘The Bride’ was recently sold at a local auction, realising £822. About the same time another Parian bust sold on ebay for £1500, where modern reproductions in Carrara marble were also for sale at a price of £90.

During a visit in the summer of 2011 we were dismayed to find that one of the wings was broken. The bottom part was lying on a ledge behind the monument. Returning in January 2012 we were delighted to find the wing had been repaired. Now that the monument has been restored to its former glory it will continue to enchant all those who see it.

Notes:-

The monument and chapel are described in Nicholas Penny’s book, Church Monuments in Romantic England.
General details on the life and works of Raffaelle Monti can be found in A Biographical Dictionary of Sculptors in Britain 1660-1851, edited by Ingrid Roscoe, Emma Hardy and M G Sullivan.
We thank the Cotswold Auction House Ltd for permission to reproduce their photograph of ‘The Bride’ used in their sale catalogue.


Joan and Robert Tucker  

Ah. So it was Raffaelle Monti

The Tuckers mention that the wings had been broken but recently repaired. I'd wondered about those wings. Surely the sculptor hadn't carved each of the angels from a single block of marble? No, of course not! The wings were separately carved, and fitted into slots on the backs of the angels, as this shot of mine makes clear:


This chapel was the major internal feature of the church, but by no means its only point of interest. Fossicking around nearer the altar, I found a wooden seat with curiously carved arm-rests. Two of them were stylised birds. But the third was a red indian, with a feathered head-dress.

 
I'm guessing these were seventeenth-century. I wondered why one of the birds had a mouse's head? The other bird could have been a pelican - I think that in legend the pelican pecks its own breast to draw blood for its young to drink. A vampirish notion. But why the indian chief?

Every old church has its odd items that puzzle the modern mind. No wonder I always look respectfully thoughtful in these places.



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