All Souls College, Oxford

Reredos at the east end of the chapel. The reredos was constructed in about 1447 and originally contained an array of bishops, saints and monarchs, arranged in curved rows on either side of a crucifixion scene and rising to a Doom (Last Judgment) at the apex. The original statues were smashed by Puritans in the 1550s, but the niches and canopies mostly survived behind a wooden cover.

What remained of the reredoes was rediscovered in the 1870s, still showing traces of the original polychrome decoration. The tracery was restored by Sir Gilbert Scott and new statues were designed and carved by a Polish sculptor, Emanuel Geffowski. They were paid for by a subscription amongst the Fellows, above all by Earl Bathurst, whose statue appears at the north side of the lower tier.

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