English church monuments

Once only the subject of antiquarian curiosity, church monuments are today recognised as works of funerary art.

From the middle of the 15th century, many figurative monuments started to represent genuine portraiture where before had existed only generalised representations.

Small figures of weepers (often friends or relatives identified by their coats of arms) were popular decorative features.

Around the 13th century, smaller two-dimensional effigies incised in plates of brass and affixed to monumental slabs of stone became popular too.

In the 16th century, church monuments became increasingly influenced by Renaissance forms and detailing (pilasters, wreaths, strapwork, skulls, coffered arches, obelisks, allegorical figures, etc.

There were major innovations in effigial posture, the deceased often being shown reclining or kneeling in prayer and surrounded by the whole family, as in life.

In the 18th century, church monuments became more restrained, placed before two-dimensional pyramids, but more Roman-like, with the deceased often depicted in Roman dress or as a cameo-like 'medallion portrait'.

The early 19th century brought Greek Revival monuments, some quite plain wall plaques, some with sentimental and romantically realistic figures (perhaps rising to heaven), or other devices such as weeping willows.

It was Larkin's response to a tomb monument in Chichester Cathedral, and the fact that the husband and wife subjects were portrayed holding hands.