Not dated
Acrylic on board
Height: 20in; Width: 30in
Nigel Frith painting of a c.15th Century stone panel on Merton College Gatehouse, Oxford. The panel was restored by Nigel’s grandfather, Edgar Frith. The panel is believed to depict St John the Baptist, Bishop Walter de Merton, a unicorn of chastity, sun of righteousness and lamb of sacrifice. Nigel Frith has suggested that the panel is in fact a copy of a lost tapestry commissioned as a college allegory with the pelican at the top representing the college, the rabbits the students protected from hounds of temptation by the college’s burrows.