in a rich dark green under-garment and red robe, and beyond him an apostle in a baudekin dress and bluegrey outer vestment. Behind St. John is a figure intended probably for St. Paul, in blue and green. Of the remaining eight Apostles only the nimbed heads are visible. All the faces are of an unmistakeably English type.

The backgrounds of the five panels are of raised gesso work with scrolls of leaf-work, all most beautifully modelled and gilded. In the first, third, and fifth panels the leaves are those of the vine, but in the second and fourth there are oak leaves and acorns.

The altar to which the reredos belonged cannot now, I am afraid, be determined. It may have stood upon the altar of the Holy Cross against the rood screen in the nave, or even upon the Jesus altar; but the slab of this, part of which exists, was only 7 feet 3 inches long, while the reredos is 15 inches more. It may, however, have slightly exceeded in length the altar itself. But the subjects of the paintings are not such as would restrict the reredos to either a Rood or a Jesus altar; and it may just as well have stood upon some other elsewhere in the church. Mr. Waller has suggested a Passion altar or one of St. Mary of the Passion. I do not, however, remember to have met with either of those dedications in any English church, and so far as wills and account rolls give information neither altar existed in the cathedral church of Norwich,1

As to the vexed question of the nationality of the tabula, I have already mentioned the opinion of Mr. Digby Wyatt, who felt "fully assured that" the paintings "were produced

1 There was in the retro-quire of the cathedral church an altar and image of Our Lady of Pity, but this reredos has no special connexion with such a subject, which represents the Blessed Virgin holding on her knees the dead body of her crucified Son.

by some student of the Siennese masters of the latter part of the fourteenth century." Mr. Wyatt gives five reasons why he arrived at this conclusion :

1. That very few decorations of the nature of the Norwich table "were, probably, executed in England."

2. That the process employed in the paintings" was peculiarly in conformity to the Italian practice," and the details of the work "present the closest analogy with the universal Italian practice in the middle ages."

3. That the composition and treatment "correspond with the conventionalities of the early Italian school."

4. That the draperies "are cast with greater skill than was, I think, possessed by the artists of any other nation, excepting Italy.”

5. That the architectural details are not such as would be designed by an English artist, but are only justifiable in the Gothic style of Italy. The gilded enrichment of the backgrounds is also claimed as peculiarly Italian.

In the forty-six years, nearly half a century, that have elapsed since Mr. Wyatt wrote, archæological knowledge has not stood still. On the contrary, profiting by the magnificent work done by Mr. Way and others of his school, it has made gigantic strides. We now know, from the numerous inventories and account rolls that have since been published, that such tables as that before us were by no means uncommon; and it is a matter of astonishment that so few have survived.

The processes employed in painting and decorating them were precisely such as were used in the Norwich table, if we may judge by a large number of fragments of examples

1 Norwich volume, 204.

of painted decoration, in other forms, that have escaped destruction.

The drawing, both of the figures and the draperies, is precisely like that found in contemporary manuscripts of undoubtedly English origin, as, for example, in the great illuminated massbook given to the abbey of Westminster by Nicholas Litlington, who was abbot from 1362 to 1386. The large illumination in this which precedes the Canon exhibits a striking English picture of the Crucifixion, with small scenes from the Passion in the border, including the Scourging, and Christ carrying the Cross. The manner in which Christ is tied to the pillar in the Scourging exactly corresponds with the Norwich picture. The illuminated initial letter for the Easter Day office also contains a picture of the Resurrection, identical in composition, even to the oblique position of the tomb, with the painting of the same subject on the reredos.

There is, moreover, nothing in the architecture that cannot be seen in contemporary English paintings; and the pillar to which our Lord is bound in the Scourging picture is precisely like what may be found in many an East Anglian early Perpendicular arcade, even to the hexagonal or octagonal abacus of the capital, and the peculiarly English type of base. The gilded gesso backgrounds were certainly used in England as well as in Italy; and the well-known examples of such decoration, formerly in St. Stephen's Chapel at Westminster, were, without doubt, the work of English artists, whose names are recorded in the fabric rolls. The famous portrait of Richard II. in the Abbey, another undoubted English work, had a ground of gilt gesso until it was cleared away by its late restorers, under the mistaken notion that it was an addition to the original painting. One patch alone was spared to tell the tale.

Mr. Waller disagrees with Mr. Wyatt as to the modus

operandi of the painting and decoration, but he adds his testimony to the conclusion of Mr. Way and Mr. Wyatt, that the execution is to be assigned to one of an Italian school.

Since Mr. Waller read his paper, the reredos has been examined by Sir Edward J. Poynter (now President of the Royal Academy), Sir Frederick Burton (the late Director of the National Gallery), Mr. L. Alma-Tadema, R.A., Mr. Philip Calderon, R.A., Mr. A. Higgins, and Sir J. Charles Robinson, all most competent critics, and they are unanimously of opinion that it is certainly not Italian. The two first-named gentlemen further expressed their opinion that it was also neither French, German, nor Flemish. Mr. Alma-Tadema writes to me: I am unable to recognise Italian workmanship in the painting and ornamentation of the Norwich reredos, and quite believe with you that it is genuine English art that we have before us." Mr. Higgins and Sir Charles Robinson unhesitatingly pronounce it English, an opinion which it seems to me as difficult to deny as it is to prove the work Italian, as upheld by Mr. Waller. The hesitation to assign an English origin to the painting no doubt arises from our want of knowledge of English art consequent upon the wholesale destruction of examples of it.

That the reredos was made and painted in this country there can, I think, be little doubt; the mouldings of the frame are thoroughly English, and, as I have shown, they were carved and fixed in place before the painting was begun. That the painting was executed in Norwich is highly probable. In a valuable paper on the painted screens and roofs in Norfolk, contributed to the Archaeological Journal in 1890, Mr. George E. Fox has shewn that there were many artists living in the city of Norwich during the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth

1 Vol. xlvii. 65-77.

centuries, and their names are all local and not foreign. One of these, Robert Ocle, is described as a "peyntour in 1407-8, when he became a freeman of Norwich, and a will of 1416 mentions "j tabulam depictam cum historia de sancta Katerina quæ tabula est in manibus Roberti Okyt de Norwico et solut est eidem Roberto pro factura ejusdem tabule xxxiiij solid. iiij đ.” 1

This Robert Ocle is mentioned frequently in the Sacrist's Rolls between 1414 and 1442 as executing works in the cathedral church, and it occurred to me that the beautiful gesso diaper of oak leaves and acorns in the second and fourth panels of the Norwich reredos might be a rebus indicative of his handiwork.

As, however, Robert Ocle was only admitted freeman. in 1407-8, he could hardly have been old enough to paint the tabula under notice. But the oak leaves would allude just as well to another man of like name, Thomas de Ocle, a "peynter," who was admitted freeman in 10 and 11 Richard II. (1386-8), and he may have been the painter of the reredos.

Besides the frame there are certain English features about the paintings, such as the architecture, the essentially English mace held by the sergeant-at-arms, the typical English grouping of the Resurrection, and, as Lord Dillon has pointed out to me, the thoroughly English military figures. The use of imitation Arabic letters on the robes of St. John in the Crucifixion and Ascension panels, and upon which Mr. Waller lays great stress in support of an Italian origin for the painting, differs from that seen in every Italian picture in our National Gallery, a fairly representative collection, in that the letters are woven into the material of St. John's under garment, and not confined to the hem of his robe, as in all

1 Illustrations of the Rood-screen at Barton Turf (Norfolk and Norwich Archæological Society, 1869), 14.