A tomb effigy (French: gisant ("lying")) is a sculpted effigy of a deceased person usually shown lying recumbent on a rectangular slab,[1] presented in full ceremonial dress or wrapped in a shroud, and shown either dying or shortly after death. Such funerary and commemorative reliefs were first developed in Ancient Egyptian and Etruscan cultures, and appear most frequently in Western European tombs from the late 11th century, in a style that continued in use through the Renaissance and early modern period, and is still sometimes used. They typically represent the deceased in a state of "eternal repose", with hands folded in prayer, lying on a pillow, awaiting resurrection. A husband and wife may be depicted lying side by side.
The life-size recumbent effigy was first found in the tombs of royalty and senior clerics, and then spread to the nobility. A particular type of late medieval effigy was the transi, or cadaver monument, in which the effigy is in the macabre form of a decomposing corpse, or such a figure lies on a lower level, beneath a more conventional effigy. Mourning or weeping figures, known as pleurants were added to important tombs below the effigy. Non-recumbent types of effigy became popular during the Renaissance. In the early Modern period, European effigies were often shown as alive, either kneeling or in a more active pose, especially for military figures. Variations showed the deceased lying on their side as if reading, kneeling in prayer, or even standing. The recumbent effigy had something of a revival during the 19th-century Gothic revival, especially for bishops and other clerics.
Some of the best-known examples of the form are in Westminster Abbey in London, St Peter’s Basilica in Rome, Santi Giovanni e Paolo, Venice (twenty-five Doges), and the Basilica of Santa Croce, Florence.
The religious beliefs of the societies that produced the earliest Egyptian effigies (which date to BC, during the Old Kingdom) are unknown but are usually assumed by modern archeologists to have commemorated either fallen Gods or members of royalty.[2] Their meaning can only be guessed at: modern archeologists see them as depictions intended to house the souls of the dead, intended to identify them as they travel through the realm of the dead. The earliest known tomb effigy is that of Djoser (BC), found in the worship chamber of the Pyramid of Djoser. The effigies were typically smaller than life-size.
Funerary masks were used throughout the Egyptian periods. Examples range from the gold masks of Tutankhamun and Psusennes I to the Roman "mummy portraits" from Hawara and the Fayum. Whether in a funerary or religious context, the purpose of a mask was the same: to transform the wearer from a mortal to a divine state.[3] The Romans continued this tradition of idolatry, and also created many other types of effigies. The faces are often clearly portraits of individuals.
Recumbent effigies were a common tradition in the funerary art of the Etruscans, an advanced civilisation and culture that developed in central Italy before 700 BC and flourished until the late second century BC.[4] Their effigies were typically carved in high relief,[4] and produced in a variety of materials, including ceramic, terracotta, marble, limestone and alabaster.[5] Structurally, they fall into two categories: small squarish cinerary urns for cremation and near life-sized rectangular sarcophagi for burials, with cremation becoming more popular over the centuries.[6] Etruscan culture viewed the dead as no less complete than the living and existing in a realm where they were forever either in despair or enjoying material comfort. From 500 BC, the effigies show the deceased as they looked while alive. They are often lavishly dressed and enjoying food and drink as if at a feast. They are typically reclining (as if alive) rather than recumbent (as if dead), with open eyes turned towards the viewer, and are often propped up on a pillow while leaning on their arm or elbow.[7]
By the 7th century the Etruscans were depicting human heads on canopic urns. When they started to bury their dead in the late 6th century they used terracotta sarcophagi,[8] with an image of the deceased reclining on the lid alone or with a spouse. The Etruscan style influenced late Ancient Greek, especially in the manner of showing the dead as they had been in life, typically in the stele (stone or wooden slabs usually built as funerary markers) format. Any aspects of the style were adapted by the Romans, and eventually spread as far as Western Asia.
Pre-historic Romans of Palatine Hill often cremated their dead (usually on pyres), while those of the Quirinal Hill would entomb the body. Eventually, the two practices merged, wherein the actual body was entombed, and an effigy of the deceased was burned. The Romans adopted the Etruscan tomb formats, maintaining the practice of showing the deceased as they were while alive. Roman sarcophagi were built from marble, and over time took on a more a contemplative, spiritual and redemptive iconographical tone, emphasising the deceased's former hierarchical role in society.[9]
The spread of Christianity throughout Europe introduced new attitudes to death and to the dead, and for the first time tombs were built in places of worship, that is churches.[10] The first medieval recumbent effigies (or gisants) were produced in the 11th century, with the earliest surviving example being that of Rudolf of Rheinfelden (d. 1080) in Merseburg Cathedral in Germany.[11] These early effigies show the deceased (usually a royal, senior cleric or aristocrat) dressed in contemporary clothing. The format proliferated across Northern Europe in the late 12th century as it became popular amongst a growing class of wealthy elites who often commissioned their tombs years before their death; often seeking to cement their historical or spiritual legacy or —especially in early examples— restore a reputation tarnished by political or military defeat.[12] [13]
The art historian Marisa Anne Bass summed up the function of medieval effigies by writing that "to represent death is to make present an absence."[14] Historians differ as to the historical influences behind their designs. Writing in 1964, in the first major general survey of tomb sculptures, the art historian Erwin Panofsky suggested that they were based on mosaic from North African and Spanish tombs, with other art historians arguing that the primary influence was from Classical funerary monuments, particularly those from Etruscan culture.[15] The historian Shirin Fozi recognises the influence of earlier formats, but thought that the idea of placing an "enlivened" representation of the dead above their grave is "too intuitive and too obvious to be read that ancient analogues were necessarily sources of inspiration."[16] According to the English historian Alfred C. Fryer, a "hastily made and lively effigy" of the deceased "in his very robes of estate" became part of the funeral procession, after which the representation was left either above or near the burial spot.[17] They were placed on many types of tombs; at first on tomb slabs before table or chest tombs (tumba) became the standard.[18] Later, wall tombs became popular in France and Spain.
Medieval effigies are typically built from marble, alabaster or wood. The early "chest tombs£ were typically built from several stone panels, with a cavity (often filled with rubble) to support the effigy. They were designed to give the impression that the body had been placed within it, but the corpse was usually buried in a vault below or beside the monument. Recent excavations indicate that some 14th-century chests did act as containers for the body. However, relatively few medieval tomb monuments have been opened.[19] Notable examples where the body was placed inside the chest include the tombs of Henry III of England (completed) and Edward I (d. 1307), both in Westminster Abbey, London. When the latter tomb was opened in 1774, the remains were found in a marble coffin placed on a bed of rubble.[20]
The earliest medieval examples are German; the style was significantly developed by French sculptors during the Romanesque style between and .[21] [22] By the 12th century, German, Dutch, Belgian, Spanish effigies largely followed the forms and iconography of the French models,[23] [24] and had begun to adapt elements of the emerging Gothic style.[25]
Romanesque effigies were typically carved from white marble and depict the deceased's body and face as they appeared in life, with no marks of illness or death. The faces are idealised rather than accurate portrayals and often show the deceased much younger than they had been at death.[26] The effigies are always recumbent—as if dead, and by the 14th century with hands clasped in prayer. The most common material is carvings on marble, alabaster or wood, with some examples cast in bronze or brass. The faces and hands of the wooden effigies, of which very few survive, are made from wax or plaster.[27] The effigies were usually polychromed to simulate life, but in most cases, this paint has long since worn away.
The first secular examples appeared in the 12th century following the establishment of the knightly class. These tombs were usually placed on flat marble slabs supported by tomb-style chests (also known as tumba)[28] decorated with heraldry and architectural detailing. The earliest examples showing armour date from the 1240s, with the most numerous surviving examples in England. The two most common poses from these English types are knights pulling out their sword, or lying cross-legged; particularly English motifs although there are some Polish and French examples.[29]
While the Romanesque and Gothic tombs were produced in great numbers —especially in France and England— it is estimated that over half were destroyed during the iconoclasm in the early modern period, and more again during the French Revolution. The majority of English churches were not subject to such destruction.
The dukes of Burgundy, who ruled in present-day Belgium, Luxembourg and northern France, were recognised throughout Europe as patrons of the arts. Through their cultivation of artists such as the sculptor Claus Sluter and the painters Jan van Eyck and Rogier van der Weyden (who is thought to have painted some of their effigies), they became key in the development of Early Netherlandish art and the wider Northern Renaissance.[30]
The iconography of Burgundian tombs develops forms and motifs found on monuments for French Kings in the Basilica of Saint-Denis, near Paris.[31] The now lost tomb of Joan of Brabant is probably the earliest example;[32] its rows of mourners positioned below the slab were reproduced in later Burgundian tombs, including those of Isabella of Bourbon, constructed between 1475 and 1476.[33] [34] [35] and the mourners on her tomb were directly copied from Joan's monument.[36]
The style became influential across Europe with the tomb of Philip the Bold (d. 1404), built over 30 years from 1381[37] by the sculptors Jean de Marville (d. 1389) and Sluter (d. 1405?) for the Chartreuse de Champmol, outside Dijon, which also houses the tombs of his son John the Fearless (d. 1419) and John's wife Margaret of Bavaria (d. 1424).[38] [39] Philip's tomb is described by the art historian Frits Scholten as "one of the most magnificent tombs of the Late Middle Ages".
The Burgundian effigies are characterised by naturalistic faces, open eyes, angels above their heads, and animals (either dogs or lions) at their feet.[40] Philip's is made from polychromed white marble which gives a natural pallor. His head rests on a cushion, and he has an angel on each side to watch over him, presumably guiding him into the afterlife. The open eyes are intended as an affirmation of the Resurrection, as are the prayers contained in the books held by some of the mourners in the niches.[41]
Tomb effigies are the most numerous type of surviving medieval statuary in Britain.[42]
The early secular examples are often below life-sized and show the deceased with their legs crossed,[43] [44] a pose long thought to indicate that the deceased had participated in the Crusades or had been a Knight Templar; theories now rejected by scholars, who see the pose as a device to give the subject a "lively martial attitude".[45] [46]
Due to the relative scarcity of appropriate stone material, especially in London and its surrounding counties, wooden effigies became common during the Romanesque period.[47] Given wood's perishability, only five examples survive, all in oak. They include the tombs of John de Pitchford in Shropshire, William de Valence in Westminster Abbey and William Longespée in Salisbury Cathedral, Wiltshire.[48] [49]
Many of the 11th- and early 12th-century English effigies of knights produced during the Plantagenet reign are known as "dying Gauls" given they show the deceased reaching for their sword as if about to enter battle or struggling against death.[50] [51] The larger-scale production of effigies began in Britain in the middle of the 13th century, following the emergence of the knightly class.[52] The 13th-century knightly effigies are less rigid and statuesque than French examples, reflecting what the historian H. A Tummers describes as a "more worldly and less spiritual outlook". Those in the Temple Church, London are among some of the earliest knightly examples and include the effigy of Geoffrey de Mandeville, Earl of Essex (d. 1144) and that of the Anglo-Norman statesman William Marshal (d. 1219), a benefactor of the Knights Templar who served Henry II (d. 1189).[53]
Britain's periods of iconoclasm were not as severe or extensive as those in northern continental Europe, and so the surviving number of examples exceeds even that of France.[54] However a great number were destroyed during iconoclasm waves from the 14th century and the Cromwellian Wars of the Three Kingdoms in the 17th century.[55] There are around 250 extant secular centuries effigies from each of the 13th and 14th centuries.[56] The main period of destruction was in the 16th century, during the Reformation led by Henry VIII, when many monastic settlements were destroyed, with casualties including many English royal tombs.[57]
While many of the innovations in medieval tomb effigies occurred in Northern Europe, the influence of Renaissance sculpture on medieval developed in the early 15th century in Italy and later in Spain.[58] While the structural format of the tombs stayed largely faithful to the earlier Romanesque and Gothic traditions, the iconography began to reflect the societal shift in attitude towards the dead; particularly in the incorporation of secular and humanistic imagery as earlier the religious imperatives behind tomb design, desire to licit intercessory prayer from the viewers to quicken the passage of the soul through purgatory.[59] [60] [61]
The architectural settings became more elaborate, incorporating elements such as putto and ancient decorative elements including sirens, centaurs, and Roman-style profile heads. The tombs and their effigies incorporated and merged recent sculptural and painterly innovations with classical traditions.
Most significantly, non-recumbent effigies became more popular, with variations including the deceased lying upwards on their side, kneeling in prayer, or even standing. The upper portion of the Tomb of Valentina Balbiani (d. 1572) shows her in life, with a book and dog, reclining in a restful pose reminiscent of Etruscan effigies. A bas-relief on the tomb's base shows her decomposed corpse in the transi style.[62]
A number of old masters were involved in their design and construction including Donatello and Bernini.[63]
The style and form of European tomb monuments adapted innovations from other forms of sculpture during the early modern period, including from non-European influences, while also incorporating elements of local traditions in memorial sculpture. However, in part driven by new attitudes towards death by the Enlightenment, by the 1750s life-sized effigies had largely fallen out of use across Europe. They became especially rare in France following the Revolution in 1789, when individual burials in large cities were discouraged in favour of unmarked collective ossuaries such as the Paris catacombs, where the dead were interred without Christian rites. This change followed a general loss in religious belief following the revolution; Panofsky referred to European tombs after the 17th century as a "skeptical affair", while other 20th art historians, including Fred Licht, wrote of a change in attitudes towards death and a prevailing indifference to funerary rites during the period.[64]
The recumbent effigy returned to vogue in Europe during the early 19th century, when attitudes towards the dead changed again, and a series of major new cemeteries were founded (usually just outside the city bounds)[65] including Montmartre in Paris and Monument Cemetery in Milan. In France, evoking 18th-century sales, cemeteries became seen as secular places where all –regardless of class– could visit their dead and cemeteries became managed by local government rather than the church.[66] Thus effigies became commemorative rather than funerary and lost most of their religious associations. According to the art historian Suzanne Lindsay, individual French examples came to be regarded as "among the highest representations of modern...sculpture" and helped increase the reputations of many individual sculptors in a period when the craft had significantly less prestige than painting or architecture.[67]
The vast majority of medieval effigies were made from stone, usually either marble or alabaster. Wooden effigies became popular in southern England, and there are examples of copper-alloy tombs, especially in France and the former Burgundy lands.[68]
The practice of showing the effigies of a married couple side by side on the same plinth (or slab) began in France and Germany in the late 13th century and spread across northern Europe in the late 14th century.[69] [70] They can be categorised into two basic types: those where the effigies were created separately (at different dates of death) and later placed together on a single plinth, and those created at the same time from a single block of stone.[71] In the former type, the tomb would often have been commissioned and built before the death of the remaining spouse.[72] The practice may have begun as a device for legitimising controversial or contested royal marriages.[73] In the same way, early Gothic double-tombs were not necessarily intended to celebrate the love between the couple, but to both reinforce the political aspect of their union.[74]
Many late 14th- and early 15th-century examples show the couples holding hands. While the motif was undoubtedly used to reflect the affection between the couple, it also needs to be seen in contemporaneity ritual and legal context. Writing in 2021, the art historian Jessica Barker said that the gesture should be seen as analogous to a modern handshake that "both symbolised and effected an agreement between two parties."[75] An early example is the now-lost tomb for Blanche of Lancaster (d. 1368) and her second husband John of Gaunt (d. 1399). The two most celebrated medieval examples are those of Richard II of England (d. 1400) and Anne of Bohemia (d. 1394), and John I of Portugal (d. 1433) and Philippa of Lancaster (d. 1415), which Barker describes as "placing extraordinary emphasis on the love between the king and queen". The well known Philip Larkin poem An Arundel Tomb, completed in 1964, describes and reflects on the effigies for Richard Fitzalan (d. 1376) and Eleanor of Lancaster (d. 1372) in Chichester Cathedral.[76]
See main article: Cadaver monument. The trend of displaying the deceased as a decomposing corpse began in France in the late 14th century, with the first known English example dating to 1425, and soon after the style spread across Northern Europe.[77] [78] Known as cadaver monuments (French: Transi), these effigies show the deceased as an emaciated corpse with closed eyes, either wearing a shroud or naked (with their hands arranged to preserve modesty), and sometimes standing upwards. The format is in stark contrast to gisants, which are always recumbent, in full dress, with open eyes and hands clasped and raised in prayer.[79] [80] The best-known examples were produced by members of the first rank of contemporary sculptors, including Conrad Meit (d.). A variation known as demigisant or gisant accounde (lying on his shoulder) shows the figure lying on its side, held up by its elbows in the Etruscan style while awaiting death, while the mourant assiste type shows the deceased alive but alone, lying on their back.[81]
Cadaver monuments first appeared in the 1380s and remained popular for 200 years.[82] Often interpreted (in a theory popularised by the historians Helen M. Roe and John Aberth)[83] as a form of memento mori or adaption of the motif of "The Three Living and the Three Dead", they show the human body's "transition" from life to decomposition,[84] highlighting the contrast between worldly riches and elegance and the degradation of death. A –1440 illuminated miniature of a Lady in a Tomb from "The Dawnce of Makabre" folios in the Additional manuscript 37049 (now in the British Library) shows the tiered (double or "two-body")[85] tomb of a fashionable English lady, with her shown in life above the slab, and as a decayed corpse within the tomb chest. The verse below the illustration reads: "Take hede un to my fygure here abowne, And se how sumtyme I was fresche and gay, Now turned to wormes mete and corrupcoun, Bot fowle erthe and stynkyng slyme and clay".[86] However, the art historian Kathleen Cohen notes some important differences to memento mori, primarily that Transi represent specific deceased individuals, and not death itself.[87]
Cadaver monuments were a dramatic change from the typical practice of depicting the deceased either in life or in a more idealised form. The impulse toward graphic expression of mortality in part reflects the societal shock and trauma following the Black Death, which hit Europe in 1346 and killed up to half of the population of Eurasia in the next four years. Its aftermath saw, in 15th- and 16th-century literature, painting, manuscript illustration and sculpture, a pronounced emphasis on the macabre and memento mori, indicating a pre-occupation with the brevity and fragility of human life.[88] [89]
In her (incomplete but representative) 1973 survey of extant cadaver monuments, Cohen lists 200 examples, of which 82 are English (produced between 1424–1689), 61 are French (produced 1391–1613), 36 are German (1456–1594), and 20 are in the Lowlands (1387–1645).[90] Considerable differences in style developed across regions and time. The early examples show the deceased either covered in a shroud (popular in France, Burgundy and England), as a shrivelled corpse with tightly pulled skin (especially popular in England), or a decomposing body covered by frogs and snakes (Germany and Austria). The practice of showing the body crawling with worms became popular in France.[91]
Over the centuries, the depictions became more realistic and gruesome, while the early tendency to line the tombs with moralising inscriptions on the vanities of life was abandoned. The convention reached a peak in the late 16th century, with the more extreme effigies depicting putrefied corpses outside of the funerary monument context, and taking centre stage as stand-alone sculptures.
Art-historical studies of tomb sculpture and sepulchral iconography tend to focus on case studies of single examples or regional associated groups rather than on a broad overview of the type's origins, development, and sociological contexts.[92] The main hindrance is the wide interdisciplinary nature of writing about the sculptures. As Barker points out, comprehensive and authoritative knowledge of such a large topic would necessitate "trespass[ing] on the preserves of archaeology, Egyptology, theology, the history of religion and superstition, philology, and many others".[93] A further practical difficulty is that the many surviving examples are dispersed in often isolated churches, abbeys and cathedrals, across a large temporal and geographical span, making comprehensive field research especially difficult.[94]
In 1954, Henriette s' Jacob published "Idealism and Realism: A Study of Sepulchral Symbolism", which focused on the various iconographical aspects of tomb imagery.[95] The broadest and most comprehensive survey is Panofsky's influential 1964 monograph Tomb Sculpture: Four Lectures on its Changing Aspects from Ancient Egypt to Bernini.[96] Panofsky acknowledged the challenge of scope in his introduction, admitting his reserve on impinging on the "preserves of many adjacent disciplines" in which he is not expert.[97] Although broader than any earlier publications on the topic, the lectures often stray into descriptions of specific works, and its scope ends in the 17th century. In a very positive contemporary review, the art historian Jan Białostocki praises Panofsky's examination as a breakthrough but clarifies that its "treatment of the subject is synthetic and that only the most general outlines of tomb sculpture's development, both in the field of iconography and style, are given."
The most influential publications following Panofsky's survey are mostly in German and include Kurt Bauch's Das mittelalterliche Grabbild: figürliche Grabmäler des 11. bis 15. Jahrhunderts in Europa (1976) and Hans Körner's Grabmonumente des Mittelalters (1996). Nigel Llewellyn's The state of play: Reflections on the state of research into church monuments discusses the difficulties in providing a full and contextualised history of English tomb art. Writing in 2023, the art historian Joan Holladay noted that the literature on tomb art had "exploded" in the previous quarter century. She categorised publications into five main types; the first two being those surveying many examples from a given region or that are connected stylistically. Thirdly she mentions publications that detail the sources of particular iconographical elements. The fourth type are those that categorise tombs into particular typologies, while lastly, and more rarely are the books and papers that give broad and sweeping overviews.[98]