The Thornham Parva Retable

The Thornham Parva Retable is Britain's largest and best preserved medieval altarpiece. It was found in a loft above a stable at Thornham Hall in Suffolk in 1927. Soon afterwards it was installed in the small thatched church of St Mary, Thornham Parva. In 1987 a detailed study of the Retable in-situ and the Cluny Frontal, now in the Musee National du Moyen Age, Paris, established that both were parts of the altar which was probably made for the Dominican Priory at Thetford. It was saved from destruction after the dissolution of the monasteries in the early 16th century by a local family who adapted it for use as a private altar. After a sustained period of fund raising, the Parochial Church Council entrusted the examination and conservation of the Retable to the Hamilton Kerr Institute, University of Cambridge. It was moved from the church in 1994. This book documents that project. The results of the technical examination are complemented by a series of articles placing the Retable in a technical and art historical context. Dating of the wooden support suggeste