Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 2.djvu/395

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IN STANTON HARCOURT CHURCH, OXON.
367

hand. On the table are two dishes, with a fish on each, and figures in the shape of beehives, which are probably intended for loaves and broken loaves of bread.

Archaeological Journal, Volume 2, 0395.png

The Last Descent from the Cross and Entombment.
The Descent into Hell.

On the north wall was The Descent from the Cross. A soldier is on a ladder removing our Lord, and on the other side are the feet as it were of another person in a similar position. The costume resembles the dress of the end of the fourteenth or beginning of the fifteenth century. From the left hand of our Lord (the only one remaining) great gouts of blood are diffused over the arm. There is no wound in the left breast; a nail passes through each foot, the feet not being crossed.

Beneath the Descent from the Cross is The Entombment. A coffin-shaped sepulchre receives our Lord's body, of which the hands are crossed. As in the other painting the wound is represented in the right breast, which seems to have been the early and most general mode of expressing it. Of the three figures engaged in entombing the body, the two next the feet are males, one of whom has a vessel in his hand with a serrated or rather embattled edge; the third figure is a female saint, probably one of the Maries, but there are no distinctive emblems.