Coventry Doom wall painting

A rare medieval fresco of the Last Judgment has been uncovered in a church in Coventry and is to be open to public view for the first time in almost 500 years.

The 15th-century painting, one of the few surviving examples of the wall paintings that were common in English churches before the Reformation, was discovered by accident after a fire in 1986 burnt away the layer of whitewash that was covering it.

It was still impossible to view the fresco properly, however, because the paint was blackened and damaged, which prompted the church to begin a restoration process that has taken a team of six specialists 17 years to complete.

Their work has exposed a spectacular work of art known as the "Coventry Doom", which is dominated by a monumental figure of Christ passing judgment on a crowd of people in 15th-century dress.

Read all about it in the Telegraph (as usual, a much more extensive treatment than the brief note at the BBC).

UPDATE: The church's own website has much more here.

NOTE: I've changed the heading, since the painting appears to be a typical English wall painting using egg tempera and oil as binders, not a true fresco. This, incidentally, is one reason for the lack of survivors (along with Iconoclasm, of course): much of a true fresco will survive even if the surface is scraped, since the pigments sink into the wet plaster, but not so for pigments applied to a dry wall.

Posted by David on December 22, 2003 1:03 PM