Jesus is Laid in the Sepulchre, the fourteenth and last Station of the Cross. Designed by John Standen Adkins, assistant to the architect James Brooks, at St John the Baptist Church, Holland Road, Kensington, London. Here are the two Marys, Joseph of Arimathæa, and Nicodemus, with Mary Magdalene bending over and supporting Jesus's head, and the Virgin Mary holding Jesus's arm. Again, the crown of thorns and the container for the oointment can be seen. The plaque below the mosaic reads, "Gift of Ward of Confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament 1914." This is clearly when the whole sequence was completed.
These visual representations of the last part of Jesus's earthly journey — some, like the encounter with St Veronica, coming from traditional tellings, but most following scriptural sources — allow for a kind of devotional pilgrimage for the congregation and are used for devotions during Lent or Holy Week. Like other artwork in churches, they are designed and executed with an eye to aesthetics, to uplifting the observer as well as being worthy of the subject itself. This is a lovely sequence of mosaics, apparently spanning the late nineteenth- to early twentieth-centuries, which fulfils both functions admirably.
Photographs by John Salmon and text by Jacqueline Banerjee. You may use these images without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the photographer and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one. [Click on the images to enlarge them.]
Created 4 June 2015