Two Apostles holding scrolls and books

These two male figures, identifiable from their bare feet and the books in their left hands as Apostles, appear before a backdrop of flower-strewn greenery, a millefleur design typical of English alabaster carvings of the fifteenth century. Above their heads are the remains of delicate pierced canopies suggestive of an architectural surround or enclosure through which we are viewing them. Both hold long, delicate parchment scrolls inscribed with the words of the Credo.

Slender, small-scale figures of this type were made to decorate the framing elements of a large timber carcass into which groups of carved alabaster panels either depicting taller saint figures or multi-figured narrative scenes (or indeed a combination of the two) would have been set. Owing in large part to their inherent fragility and delicacy, few such figures have survived in contexts divorced from their original settings. However, a group of three analogously carved figures, depicting Saint Barbara, Saint Matthew and an unidentified Bishop now in the British Museum, were undoubtedly carved in the same workshop.