Wall Panelling Corporation

[ 9 ]

Another example obviously worked by the same hand is this exquisite little carved angel, one of a pair, that support the ceiling of a minstrel gallery at Widworthy Barton about ten miles from Broadhembury. She wears all the fashionable frills and furbelows, lace collar and cuffs and slashed French farthingale with ribbon ties, well padded shoulders, and a lace stomacher. Her toes are bare and hair `undressed'. She is in every way similar to Broad­hembury figures except that being worked in higher relief and also a shade larger (about 18 inches high) the details of her costume are more obvious. A curious feature of Italian fashions about 1600 was that when ladies all over Europe, and particularly in England, were busy piling their hair into a solid mass with no parting on top of their heads­ which they could decorate with jewels and gew-gaws or a minute velvet hat-the Italian ladies parted and padded their hair to resemble horns-the centre parting with high springing waves was so essentially Italian at this time that I feel sure the artist was an Italian.

The little carved wooden figure of approximately the same date (also with bare toes) shows how an English artist gets over the problem of an angel's hair `do' by putting a crown on her head.

The carver who carried out the amusing frieze in the library at Whitestaunton was obviously in no way concerned with the `Devon' family (about whom I shall have more to say in the next chapter). His ideas again quite closely follow the florated Early English Renaissance designs, though with a skill and charm well in advance of the murals of that time. His animals-especially the fox and stoat are quite delightfully realistic, and though the camel is a trifle odd it is recognisable. The dragon or bird head sprouting flowers is often to be found in manuscripts as well as in wall panelling mural decorations and lends itself very well to a design that has no other type of repeat as in this case; each division holds a different figure or group of animals but the dragon or bird head rises at regular intervals all round the room. This frieze is not more than 18 inches in depth and beneath it is plain squared oak panelling. The frieze gives light to a room that might otherwise have been a trifle too heavy.