Our Lady’s Tumbler – Exeter Cathedral’s replica

The story of this piece goes back to August 2015 when I was asked to make a replica of a medieval corbel from the Exeter Cathedral. The idea was to make it as similar as possible not only in the carving but also in the painting, restoring it the way it would have looked to those that saw it in the 14th century, without damage and in lavish brilliant colours. The 14th century corbel is called Our Lady’s tumbler as it is made of a tumbler and a minstrel that are facing and symbolically entertaining a Virgin Mary’s corbel on the other side of the Cathedral. This originates from a medieval legend quite famous at the time.

In April last year the person that commissioned it, the future painter and I went to Exeter Cathedral, climbed up a scaffolding built for this purpose and took photos and measurements. We couldn’t find any supplier of the original type of stone, Beer Stone, as the quarry has now been shut down but on the recommendations of the cathedral dean we used an equivalent called Richemont Blanc. We bought two blocks from Chichester Stoneworks and I started to carve the tumbler first, then the minstrel. It was extremely difficult at first to get the measurements right. I was working from two-dimensional photos from different angles and I was applying it to a three-dimensional squared stone block. It’s a miracle that I managed to get proportions more or less right! Moreover, the stone was very soft and fragile and a couple of times I managed to knock down a chin or a leaf, luckily all easily amendable. The joined sculpture measures around 1.20 m x 0.50 m together. Later this year it will be painted by the professional conservator Eddie Sinclair using original medieval pigments so to recreate the same colours as it was in the 14th century. And that’s the reason why it has not been sanded down with fine tools, as you can see from the photos. It has a rough look, not refined as it will be covered with gesso for priming and then painted over.

The whole piece will then be mounted on top of a wooden cabinet by Kuristo DeMans. Making it a highly collaborative and diverse in terms of used media piece.

When finished we are also hoping to see it displayed at the Exeter Cathedral itself but I’ll keep you posted about this for sure!

Photos by Marco Brockmann

UPDATE: the painting of the corbel is now finished and you can see the final results here.