Medieval Iron Horse Shoe Plate

With a beaded border, a long-eared fox with a bishop’s crozier preaches to a congregation of birds; this hugely popular satirical motif in which the pastor becomes the predator, preying on his flock, was originally directed against the mendicant friars but soon came to criticise the regular clergy too; the two pairs of letters, either side of the ‘preacher’, appear to read 'IE ME', perhaps Anglo-Norman for ‘I love’. 7.09 grams, 18.65 mm high



Found Gloucestershire, UK. Acquired from the early 1980s. From the private collection of a late Gloucestershire, UK, gentleman; thence by descent.

Discoid plaque with rolled rim and central socket; underside with incised cross motif, possibly later. 183 grams, 73 mm



From the collection of a Buckinghamshire, UK, collector, established from the earlier 1960s.

Depicting Mary clad in red and green, with a green halo outlining her head, raising her hands in exclamation. 1.92 kg, 53 x 23.5 cm



Eglise Saint-Malo, Dinan, France, by repute. Acquired from the above by Mr and Mrs Junius P. Morgan, Princeton, New Jersey, USA. The Dalva Brothers collection. Accompanied by a previous cataloguing document. This lot has been checked against the Interpol Database of stolen works of art and is accompanied by search certificate number no.12994-246433.

Although her garments are uncharacteristic of figures of the Virgin, she nevertheless almost certainly represents Mary as she appeared in a scene of the Annunciation. Both in terms of the choice of colours, and in the style and treatment of her features and drapery folds, she can be compared very closely with window panels from the third quarter of the thirteenth century removed from the Church of Saint Radegonde in Poitiers, including a window now in the Glencairn Museum in Bryn Athyn which shows in its lowermost vignette an identically dressed Virgin riding side saddle on a donkey during her flight into Egypt (fig. 1a-b).