Warmington.
_Monumental Portraits_ (Vol. v., p. 349.).--Fully agreeing with my
friend H. H. in his opinion of the brass of the Abbess of Elstow,
considered as a portrait, I should yet be glad if your correspondents
would send to "N. & Q." the names of any effigies which may appear to
them exceptions to the rule of conventional portraiture, especially if
of earlier date than the latter half of the sixteenth century. H. H. has
mentioned one, Nicholas Canteys, 1431, at Margate: and I am inclined to
add another in the well-executed little brass of Robert de Brentingham
at East Horsley, Surrey; this is about the date of 1380. The artists of
that time, in brasses as well as in painted glass, wood-carving, &c.,
may have sometimes desired to produce a portrait, but certainly they
seldom succeeded: a religious severity of expression atoned for the
deficiency. In English coins it is well known that there is no
appearance of a portrait before the reign of Henry VII.
The particular _costume_, however, of the deceased was more attended to
in monumental effigies; and it is this fact which renders the study of
them so serviceable towards a knowledge of the manners and habits of our
ancestors. Care was even taken not to omit any peculiarity which may
have distinguished the deceased; of which the long beard of Sir Wm.
Tendring, at Stoke, by Layland, is perhaps an instance, and many others
might be quoted. If any decided portraits are known in _stone effigies_,
it would I think be desirable to communicate such to the pages of "N. &
Q."