Retable

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Related to retables: reredos

retable

A decorative screen set up above and behind an altar, generally forming an architectural frame to a picture, bas-relief, or mosaic.

The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Retable

a large screen set up behind the altar of many Latin American and Spanish churches of the 15th through 18th centuries. Often reaching as high as the ceiling, a retable consisted of a frame completely covered with sculptured figures and other sculptural ornamentation. Sometimes paintings were included. The most commonly used materials for retables were wood, alabaster, and marble.

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References in periodicals archive ?

The religious use and meaning of altars, retables, tabernacles, canopies and other church furniture around the altar are the focus of this outstanding collection of 14 articles.

The altar and its environment; 1150-1400

JC Flowers is also expected to give shareholders a sweeter deal when it retables its bid.

Rock suitors fight to get upper hand; Favourites Virgin facing stiff challenge

(39.) For a reproduction of this retable, along with a discussion of its stylistic elements and probable provenance, see Monique Blanc, Retables: la collection du Musee des arts deoratifs (Paris: Reunion des musees nationaux, 1998), 60-61.

Mary or Michael? Saint-switching, gender, and sanctity in a medieval miracle of childbirth (1)

This relationship to Netherlandish wooden retables provides several clues both to the meaning of the gates and their method of production.

The search for John Tresilian, Master Smith to Edward IV

Fortunately for us, Riemenschneider produced his great work before retables stopped being commissioned, leaving sculptors with no way to earn their livelihoods.

Touched by an Angel

Thirteenth-century retables, as well as the stained glass windows of that time, show images and facts without concerning themselves with perspective and have an extraordinary power of communication, within the limits of their own space.

An interview with Osman Lins

The churches of Sao Francisco de Assis and Nossa Senhora do Carmo, the carvings, altarpieces and retables of Nossa Senhora do Pilar, Sao Francisco de Paula, Sao Miguel and Almas, Nossa Senhora do Rosario, and the works in the Museo da Inconfidencia are only a few of the magnificent monuments Aleijadinho bequeathed to his birthplace.

The chiseled legacy of Aleijadinho

(54) But while maitres-autels and retables in seventeenth-century Paris were justly impressive--for awe was one of their primary functions--they often eclipse the minor, less extravagant, but by no means undignified, altars located throughout many cathedrals and churches with which congregants also had familiarity in daily worship.

"Pourquoi sous cette table?": more Candlelight on Moliere's Tartuffe

142, 144, 256-65; idem, 'Questions d'attribution stylistique: retables inedits en Angleterre,' in S.

A passion altarpiece restored: a remarkable 15th-century Netherlandish altarpiece acquired by the 15th Duke of Norfolk in 1886 has gone on show at Arundel Castle, following a restoration that has revealed its original painted decoration. Kim Woods reviews the information about its history that has come to light and discusses its place of origin and maker

Retables present a rich dialogue between the primary and secondary scenes.

Heike Schlie. Bilder des Corpus Christi: Sakramentaler Realismus von Jan van Eyck bis Hieronymus Bosch

Lewine, eds., Essays in the History of Art Presented to Rudolf Wittkower (London: Phaidon, 1967), 40-55; Colin Eisler, "The Golden Christ of Cortona and the Man of Sorrows in Italy," The Art Bulletin 51.2 (June, 1969): 107-118, 233-246; Westfehling, Die Messe Gregors des Grossen, especially 16-54; Brigitte d'Hainaut-Zveny, "Les messes de saint Gregoire dans les retables des Pays-Bas.