The Wyndham Payne Crucifixion

Abstract

IT is to an American that we owe the only comprehensive study of English medieval painting. Margaret Rickert's Painting in Britain: the Middle Ages saw its first edition in 1954, and a second eleven years later, in the series The Pelican History of Art. The first edition made public for the first time 'a magnificent new "Herman" miniature' owned by the late Mr. A. Wyndham Payne. By 'Herman' Miss Rickert meant Herman Scheerre, the most important artist in England of the International Gothic style. This is the name given to the art of western Europe north of the Alps c. 1380-1430. For identification of Scheerre we are again indebted to Miss Rickert. In 1935 in the Burlington Magazine she established that the painter previously regarded as an Englishman called Richard Herman was really someone of Continental origin named Herman Scheerre.