an altarpiece or a devotional painting was hidden or lost. Such a circum-
stance had the added benefit of delaying the painting’s entry into the
conservation cycle, leaving the support virtually untouched. Religious
paintings that are now found in churches are most likely to have been
installed much later (Grössinger 1992). There were, therefore, very few
indigenous painted panels to enlist particular conservation techniques,
good or bad—such as the splitting of altar panels, as was a common
practice in Germany in the nineteenth century, as mentioned by Ulrich
Schiessl (see “History of Structural Panel Painting Conservation,” herein).
The Thornham Parva Retable, found in 1924^2 and generally accepted to
have been made and painted in about 1340 in an East Anglian abbey, possibly
Thetford, has undergone little structural alteration, although parts were
crudely overpainted in the eighteenth century (Figs. 1, 2). The Westminster
Abbey Retable, painted around 1275, was first noticed by George Vertue
about 1725; it formed the top of a large press built to house several effigies
(Wormald 1949:166–74). Until the beginning of the nineteenth century,
the painted surface was damaged by neglect and deliberate vandalism, but
the complex wooden support is largely untouched.
The majority of English panel paintings that have survived are
portraits painted up to the beginning of the seventeenth century. Many
ofthese were painted by itinerant Italian, German, or Flemish artists
who, like Zuccaro, Holbein, and Stretes, might have made several
extended visits to the Tudor court. These painters competed with British
painters such as Robert Peake. Some larger panels also survive from the
sixteenth century, anotable example being The Family of Henry VIII: An
Allegory of the Tudor Successionby Lucas de Heere (Royal Collection,
Hampton Court Palace), who escaped religious persecution in the
Netherlands and worked in England from 1566 to 1576. The painting,238 McClure
Figure 1
British school, Thornham Parva Retable, ca.
- Oil on panel, 381 3 94 cm. Church of
Saint Mary, Thornham Parva.
Figure 2
British school, Thornham Parva Retable,
reverse. The white arrows indicate the place-
ment ofdowels. The frame is modern.