Saint James the Greater

This carved oak relief shows the apostle Saint James the Greater, and was made in ca. 1350-1360 in Lower Saxony, Germany. Together with three other reliefs now also at the V&A, it originally belonged to a winged altarpiece in the Johanneskirche in Lüneburg, which was dismantled in 1856.

In its centre, this altarpiece probably displayed a sculpture showing the Coronation of the Virgin, which now is in the Museum Lüneburg. Two other figures belonging to the altarpiece are now preserved at the Niedersächsisches Landesmuseum, Hanover, and one is still displayed in the Johanneskirche itself. It is likely that the relief of Saint James the Greater and its three companion pieces at the V&A, all remarkably shallow, once decorated the altarpiece's wings.