The Betrayal of Christ

The dramatic moment of The Betrayal of Christ was a popular subject for Nottingham alabaster reliefs in late medieval England with a consistent iconographic tradition: Judas embracing Christ about to identify him to the soldiers with a kiss. The composition of the figures around the pair tend to vary more from one relief to another but typically portray a busy and charged scene with soldiers reaching for their swords, about to make the arrest. As in the present lot, the figure of Malchus is often included sometimes prostrate or seated holding his ear which Saint Peter has cut off in an attempt to prevent the arrest. A comparable example to the present lot is housed in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (accession no. A57-1946) with a figure of Malchus seated on the ground clutching his ear, although not the addition of a second seated figure to the left (Cheetham, loc. cit.).

The industry for producing alabaster carvings flourished from the mid-14th to the mid-16th centuries. While most were produced in Nottingham, workshops also existed in London, York and Burton-on-Trent. These highly stylised carvings were very occasionally made as single figures but most commonly as individual rectangular panels which could be transported with relative ease and fitted into an architectural surround. Compared to works in stone or marble, alabaster carvings were relatively cheap because of the ease with which the material could be carved, thus they were attractive to less wealthy churches and for private devotion. Throughout the two centuries of their production, English, and specifically Nottingham, alabasters were hugely popular on the local market and for export overseas. Dealers located in ports such as Hull, Southampton and Bristol represented the carvers and facilitated the exportation of their works across Europe and in particular to France and Spain, where even today some churches retain their English alabaster altarpieces. Unfortunately, the Dissolution of the Monasteries in England from 1536 onwards saw the total collapse of the industry and thereafter even larger numbers of English alabasters were shipped off to Catholic Europe to be sold at vastly reduced prices. Rectangular alabasters were often produced as part of a series of five panels making up an altarpiece. As can be discerned from the panels that are extant today, the most commonly depicted subjects were episodes from the Passion of Christ or Life of the Virgin and typically had a Crucifixion as the central scene.