From France to America
The remains of Saint John Le Bas-Nueil were privately owned in 1927, when the Museum purchased the Chapter House. It was disassembled stone by stone, each one marked to indicate its original placement in the structure. Thousands of blocks were packed into hundreds of cases and shipped to
Worcester. Here in the Museum’s new addition, adjacent to the Renaissance Court, the Chapter House was methodically reconstructed. Completed in
1933 it became the first medieval edifice rebuilt in an American museum. Materials and Construction
The Chapter House is entirely made of stone, held together with mortar.
Limestone was used for the structure, while the two central interior columns were made from sandstone. The interior side walls are not original to the building. Traces of black, red and yellow paint were found on the stone, suggesting that during the Middle Ages the inside walls were painted in different colors.
This room was originally part of a larger architectural complex. The entrance doorway once led in from the cloister, an open court at the heart of the
monastery. The thick heavy walls and semicircular arches of the Chapter House are characteristic of Romanesque style architecture. The interior
ceiling, however, with its ribbed vaulting, heralds the beginning of a new
style. In the Gothic architectural style, these ribs came to support pointed arches. Gothic arches were progressively stretched to support higher ceilings. Over centuries to come they became so attenuated that the structure seemed to defy the weight of the stone. Decoration
In the fifteenth century, the monks of Saint John Le Bas-Nueil replaced
the original central window of their Chapter House with a fireplace. In the Museum, a fifteenth-century French sculptural relief depicting the Virgin and Child was incorporated into the space over the fireplace. A modern
composite of English medieval glass, acquired from various sources, was
also added. However, in the twelfth century it is likely that the windows were
covered by simple wooden shutters. At that time the room was illuminated by candles. Today, modern lighting evokes a comparable atmosphere. The newest addition to the Chapter House are the benches and chairs, built
especially for the room by artist-designers Yvonne Fehling and Jennie Peiz in 2012.
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W W W . W O R C E S T E R A R T. O R G
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