FDA-A.83-2010
Parts
Object number
FDA-A.83-2010
Object type
Identification
Title
Piper Altar Frontal
Description
Altar frontal in cream coloured fabric, with hand-painted foliage design in purple and red
Comments
‘Almost 20 years after the installation of Piper’s windows, the then Conduct, the Reverend James Bentley, wrote to urge him to consider creating one further design for the Chapel. An anonymous donor had offered £1,000 towards a new altar frontal to cover the austere portable altar now in use on Sundays and, although this seemed a modest amount to offer such an esteemed artist, Bentley believed his involvement would ‘complete’ the scheme and did not want to look elsewhere. He wrote to Piper at his home, Fawley Bottom Farmhouse, near Henley, on 25 November:
I know that money - even £1,000 - goes a very little way these days. But I wonder whether there is anything you yourself could do for that figure...
The following week Piper telephoned the Conduct to accept the commission… Another former Conduct, the Reverend Keith Wilkinson, was working as an assistant in the Chapel when Piper arrived to begin painting the frontal on site in the building. On the first day, Piper brought purple paint and created a freehand foliage design along the lower half of an expanse of plain beige silk. Piper told Wilkinson that this design was intended to relate to Burne-Jones’s tapestry, seen beyond the altar, and his foliage clearly echoes the twisting green leaves of the flowers which run along the bottom of the tapestry… the artist returned the next day carrying a pot of red paint and added deep red berries between the twisting branches of foliage. These berries visually connected the design to the deep red carpet on which the altar then stood…’
[Source: Martin, Philippa, 'John Piper's Altar Frontal', Eton College Collections Journal, Summer 2018, p.17]
I know that money - even £1,000 - goes a very little way these days. But I wonder whether there is anything you yourself could do for that figure...
The following week Piper telephoned the Conduct to accept the commission… Another former Conduct, the Reverend Keith Wilkinson, was working as an assistant in the Chapel when Piper arrived to begin painting the frontal on site in the building. On the first day, Piper brought purple paint and created a freehand foliage design along the lower half of an expanse of plain beige silk. Piper told Wilkinson that this design was intended to relate to Burne-Jones’s tapestry, seen beyond the altar, and his foliage clearly echoes the twisting green leaves of the flowers which run along the bottom of the tapestry… the artist returned the next day carrying a pot of red paint and added deep red berries between the twisting branches of foliage. These berries visually connected the design to the deep red carpet on which the altar then stood…’
[Source: Martin, Philippa, 'John Piper's Altar Frontal', Eton College Collections Journal, Summer 2018, p.17]
Description
Dimensions
length (actual size): 2770mm
depth (actual size): 840mm
height (actual size): 960mm
depth (actual size): 840mm
height (actual size): 960mm
Dimension note
approx. 178in. wide
Materials & techniques note
Goache on raw silk
Physical description
Decorated with berried foliage; the centre part now adapted to take another altarpiece.
Production
Person
Date
c.1970