East Anglian School, 
late 15th century- 

The Assumption of the Virgin; 

oil and tempera on coarse linen, 134.5 x 166.1 cm. (unframed). 

Provenance: 
with Mallett at Bourdon House, London. 
Private Collection. 

Literature: 
Denys Sutton, 'English Medieval Paintings Newly Discovered in Norfolk', in Apollo, Volume III, 220 (1980), p.464-465. 

Note: 
The present painting is one of six painted wall-hangings of New Testament scenes from 15th century Norfolk which, after their rediscovery, were offered by Mallett of Bourdon House in 1980. Sutton describes how these paintings on coarse linen, known as dorsaria, were used as wall-hangings in English churches from the thirteenth century to the end of the fifteenth century, whilst the style of the present works (according to Sutton) points to a date between 1465 and 1470. Although the precise church from which this set of wall-hangings originated is not known, Norman Scarfe has suggested three possibilities, due to the size of the paintings: the private chapel of the Lucas family house at Saxham, near Bury St Edmunds; the church of the Holy Trinity at Long Melford; or, perhaps most impressively, the Abbey church of St Edmund in Bury St Edmunds, which Scarfe believed to be the most likely option. Indeed, Sutton describes how, 'When Bury Abbey church sustained a great and terrible fire in 1465, every effort would have been made to replace what was destroyed', a fact which is particularly interesting when Sutton's stylistic dating of the wall-hanging is taken into consideration.