THE ALARD TOMBS, WINCHELSEA.
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—I was recently studying the famous Alard Tombs in Winchelsea Church, and was struck by the two heads among the foliage in the canopies ; one, an oval, woman's face, with oak branches and acorns springing from her mouth, and encircling it ; the other, a grinning round fate, with an animal's ear on one temple (the other obviously brokep off), and foliage of an acanthus or seaweed-like nature springing from the ear. They irresistibly suggest a Dryad and a Faun, and I shall be glad if your readers can throw any light on them, or give other examples of such a motif in English sculpture of the decorated period.
In the Album of the thirteenth-century architect, Villard de Honnecourt (ed. J. B. A. Lassus), Plates IX. and XLII. show examples of what he calls " t_tes de feuillcs." The former is of two male heads whose hair, eyebrows and beard are transformed into conventionalized fig-leaves which frame them ; the latter is a -vine-leaf with human eyes, nose, and mouth ; in neither is the human outline of the face preserved. as at Winchelsea. Lassus remarks that such heads were " fort en usage au XIIle siècle" and that their origin " pour- rait etre toute paienne sans que l'on s'en doubtlt " (p. 75).
The animal's ear at Winchelsea might, of cotuse, be merely a grotesque, and not point to any classical origin, but the female head has nothing grotesque about it. The excellent little Story of Winchelsea Church, on sale locally, does not mention these heads, but suggests that foreign stonemasons. employed at the time on Westminster Abbey, may have been called in to embellish the church of Edward I.'s " new town " ; if so, may they not have domiciled here these pagan and alien wild things ?—I am, Sir, &c.,
. EM/dA GURNEY SALTER.
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