A sow with bristles along her spine sits upright to wind wool or flax fibres on to a distaff prior to spinning. Carved in wood late 1400s CE. Misericord on underside of choir stall seat in the Oude Kerk (Old Church), Amsterdam, Netherlands.
Amsterdam, North Holland, Netherlands: a bristle-spined sow sits upright to wind wool or flax fibres on to a distaff in this misericord artwork, sculpted around 1480 to 1500 beneath a tipping choir stall seat in Amsterdam’s oldest building, the former Roman Catholic Oude Kerk (Old Church) in Ouderkerksplein. The wood carving is one of several ancient misericords in the church to have survived the Dutch Revolt against Spanish rule, the switch from Catholicism to Calvinism under the Protestant Reformation - and incidents when the building was looted and defaced. The worst example of this occurred in 1566, when an iconoclastic mob destroyed most of the church’s art and fittings. Some pre-Reformation stained glass survived the assault and the misericords in the choir were also left unscathed. The Oude Kerk misericords are a mixture of late-15th century carvings mostly illustrating Dutch proverbs or sayings, plus a few modern examples, such as a draughtsman working at his drawing board, which was added to the collection in 1974. The former church is now a museum of architecture and art, although it still holds Protestant Sunday services.
Size: 3008px × 2000px
Location: Oude Kerk, Ouderkerksplein, Amsterdam, Netherlands
Photo credit: © Terence Kerr / Alamy / Afripics
License: Royalty Free
Model Released: No
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