Joan de Vere

This funeral effigy of Joan de Vere was made some time after she died in 1292. Originally placed in Lewes Priory, it was relocated to Chichester Cathedral in the sixteenth century’s dissolution of monastic institutions. She is flanked by two sets of weeping angels, whose heads zealous reformers or puritans saw fit to remove.

John Flaxman RA (who died 1826), the famous English sculptor, leading figure in British Neoclassicism and prolific maker of funerary monuments, considered Joan’s effigy the finest in England. The face certainly retains character, something which medieval art often fails to achieve, and her sweet smile makes it the more attractive. Despite the somewhat battered and chipped surface, her beauty is still evident.

None of us will achieve the vintage of Joan de Vere’s effigy, but we can age gracefully and attain maturity graciously. There are few things less attractive than a crabby old woman or tetchy old man. What we gain in wisdom and lose in health, may we match with gentleness and grace.

And even to your old age I am he; and even to hoar hairs will I carry you: I have made, and I will bear; even I will carry, and will deliver you. Isaiah 46:4

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