Bay 4 - The Last Judgement

Panel 11 - Separating the blessed and the damned

Description:
To the left, the saved, in the form of seven male figures with crowns of glory, are led away by an angel towards panel 10, where Abraham's bosom awaits them. To the right, encircled by a chain, the damned are dragged off by a devil towards their less palatable fate as depicted in panel 12. As usual, the damned group is made up of all classes of society, including a lady in a fashionable head-dress, a crowned king, a mitred bishop and a couple of tonsured clerics. Two bishops' croziers also emerge from the scrum. The fashionable lady looks back despairingly and raises her hand in protest, as if unwilling to believe her misfortune (see detail below).

The very different fates anticipated by the two groups is emphasised by their physical postures (particularly their heads) and by the mirroring of the composition, with both the angel and the devil leading the foremost members of their respective groups by the wrist.

Tituli: None

Restoration notes: No restorer's labels. Some of the blue pieces (particularly two lower right) look like they may be replacements since their greater transparency reveals the protective wire outside the window, though since the pieces generally exhibit different thicknesses and different rates of weathering, this is no guarantee.

Details:

1) The damned lady;