X-Nico

2 unusual facts about recumbent effigy


Recumbent effigy

Some of the greatest examples of the recumbent effigy in Westminster Abbey in London, Saint Peter's in Rome, Santi Giovanni e Paolo, Venice (twenty-five Doges), and the Basilica of Santa Croce, Florence.

The body of Dr. Sun Yat-sen (1866–1925), considered the "Father of Modern China", is interred beneath a sarcophagus of white marble with a sculpted effigy of Dr. Sun on top, supine and dressed in conservative modern Chinese attire.


St Michael and All Angels Church, Hughenden

The memorials in the church include three recumbent effigies of knights, one lying cross-legged; although apparently in the style of the 13th century, the effigies have been ascertained to date from the 16th century and are thought to have been sculpted as fabricated evidence of the pedigree of the Wellesbourne family as descendants of Simon de Montfort.


see also

All Saints Church, Claverley

The monument to Sir Robert Broke, who died in 1558, and his two wives is in alabaster with three recumbent effigies on a tomb-chest, and children standing around the sides.

Emo, County Laois

The village pub, named The New Inn (now called "The Gate House"), dates from the village’s foundation as does the Gothic Catholic Church which contains the tomb of Aline, the Lady Portarlington, with its recumbent effigy by Joseph Boehm.

Gaston of Foix, Duke of Nemours

A very elaborate tomb was commissioned for Gaston in Milan from the workshop of Agostino Busti, which despite never being completed and assembled remains a key work in art history, and especially French Renaissance art, with (as planned) classicising relief panels of his campaigns around the base of the sarcophagus, surmounted by a more traditional recumbent effigy.

Redvers Buller

There is a memorial to Buller, in the form of his recumbent effigy, in the north transept of Winchester Cathedral, England.

St Giles in the Wood

A monument with lively recumbent effigy exists in the parish church of Thomas Chafe (1585-1648) of Dodscott, whose sister Pascoe Chafe was the wife of his neighbour Tristram Risdon (d.1635) of Winscott.