Anonymous English artist.
From the south side of the Lady Chapel, Ely Cathedral.
This small figure of a peasant originally occupied a place in the decorated top or canopy in one of the windows of the Lady Chapel of Ely Cathedral. The figure is painted in a dense dark brown pigment on white glass. Images of peasants are relatively rare in medieval art.
The interior of the Lady Chapel of Ely Cathedral, begun in 1321, was once richly coloured, with stained glass and painted and gilded stone sculpture. Both were badly damaged at the Reformation and only some of the stained glass, high up and out of reach, has survived.
The elegantly refined style of the niche Figures designed to inhabit the canopies of the Lady Chapel windows is echoed in manuscripts in both England and France, revealing how up-to-date the Ely glass-painters were.
Inv. No. 1991/4 Lent by the Dean and Chapter.