(other examples of this rare scene are at Beckley in Oxfordshire and Belchamp Walter in Essex).Find Faversham on a map
The story begun with the Annunciation at Faversham continues on the painted pillar with scenes of the Nativity of Christ, and it includes these scenes of the Annunciation to the Shepherds.
At the far left is the youthful-looking Angel, who extends his right hand and arm towards a shepherd who kneels, supported on his staff, at the second left. His small white dog, sitting very upright on its haunches at the lower left of the picture, barks at the Angel. Beyond, on the next face of the pillar and shown here at the far right, is a second shepherd, his astonishment wonderfully captured in one of the finest scenes on the entire pillar. If there was a third shepherd, he must have been painted on a much smaller scale to fit into the limited amount of available space below this one, but this area is now very unclear. On the next face of the pillar are scenes of the Nativity, beginning (photo, left) with the Virgin suckling the Christ Child. (other examples of this rare scene are at Beckley in Oxfordshire and Belchamp Walter in Essex).
Here at Faversham, the Ox looks on from above. The Ass is painted beyond, in profile, looking left, on the next face of the pillar, above what remains of a figure of St. Joseph, very badly damaged now, quite possibly deliberately, but shown at the second left below in the interests
of completeness.
The remaining faces of the pillar in this central tier have scenes of the Presentation in the Temple/Adoration of the Magi, which, along with the Annunciation and Visitation in the tier below, have a page of their own.
Website for St Mary of Charity, Faversham
Links to other Infancy Scenes
21/12/2002
© Anne Marshall 2002