This catalogue originally accompanied an exhibition hosted by Luhring Augustine, New York, 21 January-12 March 2022, and organised in collaboration with Sam Fogg, London. The latter, according to its own presentation on the homepage, is “the world’s leading dealer in the art of the European Middle Ages,” selling to private collectors and museums alike, while Luhring Augustine is a New York art gallery that, again in its own words, “presents both groundbreaking contemporary and rigorous historical exhibitions.” The exhibition entitled “The Medieval Body” was not the first collaboration of the two institutions: similar ventures took place in 2018 (“Of Earth and Heaven. Art of the Middle Ages”), 2020 (“Gothic Spirit. Medieval Art from Europe”), and another one is taking place at present (January-March 2025, “Treasures of the Medieval World”). Sam Fogg also co-organises exhibitions with other dealers of historical art and art fairs in Europe and the US.
Such collaborations do not necessarily lack academic rigor and sometimes the accompanying catalogues are comparable in quality to the catalogues that are published in the context of museum exhibitions. In the “The Medieval Body” catalogue, however, the artworks are presented with barely any text. The catalogue provides neither articles by specialists nor descriptive texts that embed the artworks in their cultural, historical, and religious contexts. There is a one-page bibliography and a one-page introduction by Matthew Reeves and Jana Gajdošová, and the artworks are accompanied by minimal information concerning their original provenance, date, measurements, materials, previous ownership, as well as previous exhibitions or publications where applicable. In other words, this catalogue suggests, and a video available on youtube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhUEGRUhZ2o, last accessed 29 January 2025) confirms, this was not an exhibition with a didactic concept or a theme beyond its title. The artworks were shown without explanatory plaques and seemingly in no particular order. Without doubt, the exhibition was aesthetically as pleasing as the catalogue is, but for an audience without specialist knowledge, it cannot have gone beyond that. And to be fair, that probably was simply not the aim either.
So what can medievalists gain from this catalogue? Those of us researching or teaching on the body in medieval culture and art will appreciate the masterful photography by William Fulton and Barney Hindle and the catalogue design by Richard Ardagh Studio. Most of the objects are shown in several photos, presenting different angles or focusing in on details. Compared to other catalogues that often present only one view of an object, this is enriching and provides context of a different kind. “The Chaworth Roll” (exhibit 10), for example, is shown in five different photos, which alternatingly enable the viewer to see the parchment role in its materiality, with both ends rolling up, and to see its cracks and blemishes in a close-up, or to focus on its narrative structure, patterns, and colour schemes. The limestone sculpture of “Saint Quentin being tormented” (exhibit 13), is first shown in a frontal view, then in a partial side-view that brings out the play of light and shadow, and finally in an extreme close-up that focuses the viewer’s attention on the contrast between the ribs under the skin and the open wounds in the saint’s lower abdomen. The materiality, again, of the “pair of alabaster standing Apostles, carved for the high altar of Saint-Omer Cathedral” (exhibit 15) comes out best in the close-up, which shows the alabaster giving the folds of cloth draped on the Apostles’ arms a skin-like appearance, with its characteristic purplish lines evoking veins. And finally, the photos of exactly the same size and position, on three consecutive pages, from the “Book of Hours, for the Use of Paris, in Latin and French” (exhibit 19), with the historiated initials showing the annunciation, the adoration, and the circumcision of Christ, underline the narrative quality of the manuscript illuminations. Hence, it is the design of the catalogue and the photography that may open new and exciting perspectives on the medieval bodies we are studying.
In their very short, one-page introduction, Matthew Reeves and Jana Gajdošová introduce the exhibition (and, by extension, the catalogue) as “bringing together a group of artworks that tell a unique story about the body as both a physical entity and a recognisable metaphor.” They hint at the plethora of topics related to the medieval body, the dualities of body and soul, life and death, material and metaphor, suffering and salvation, and highlight the central role of Christ’s body and of church architecture as inherently connected to it. It would have been a great asset for this beautiful catalogue if they had expanded this introductory text to ca. triple its length and contextualised more than the three objects they do embed in their general observations. This is particularly true of racialised representations of bodies (there is a twelfth-century limestone “Head of an African King” in the catalogue, exhibit 4), or bodies in clothing held together by the “Merovingian brooches” (exhibit 2). In the catalogue, the exhibits are listed in strictly chronological order, and perhaps a thematic order might have provided further insights, even without much text.
One great merit of this catalogue, of course, is the glimpse it provides at artworks that come from private collections and may again disappear in private collections before they are next made accessible to the general public.