Until March 10th, 2018
Fig. 1. Detail from the Expulsion from Paradise, Church of Saint Firmin at Flavigny-sur-Moselle, Lorraine, 1533, by Valentin Bousch.
In association with Sam Fogg, the Luhring Augustine Gallery, New York, is currently hosting Of Earth and Heaven: Art from the Middle Ages, an exhibition of late Medieval painting, sculpture, stained glass and goldsmiths’ work. Bringing together some of the finest masterpieces of Medieval and Renaissance art still in private hands, the centrepiece of the exhibition is three monumental sections of carved stonework from the south transept window of Canterbury Cathedral, one of the most important pilgrimage sites in Europe. The window was designed by Thomas Mapilton (d. 1438), a master mason who worked on Westminster Abbey and the Tower of London prior to his appointment at Canterbury. The window, made from limestone specially quarried at Caen in Normandy, France in 1428, was one of the most ambitious projects of English Gothic architecture, filling almost the entire height and width of the cathedral’s vast south transept.
Other highlights include an extraordinary stained-glass window (Fig. 1) depicting the Creation of the World and the Expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden, painted in 1533 by the celebrated Renaissance glass-painter Valentin Bousch.
A fully-illustrated catalogue has been published in conjunction with the exhibition, and is available through the Luhring Augustine Gallery website.