A couple was left stunned after finding a 10-foot painting of Jesus on the cross inside their barn.
After locating a date and signature showing it was 70 years old, they contacted their local reverend and managed to get it lodged in the Church of Saint Bartholomew in Lostwithiel as a piece of holy local history.
Sarah Worne and her husband bought an acre of land last October near Lostwithiel in Southwest England.
The Cornwall site included the barn which the couple said was filled with 30 pieces of plywood sheets they needed to remove. Imagine their surprise, however, when behind one of the last sheets was a painting of Jesus.
Made in the shape of a cross and measuring 10 feet tall at its highest point, the work depicts the crucifixion of Jesus and possibly the Virgin Mary and his disciple John.
Mrs. Worne, who happens to be a former art teacher, told English media nothing could hold her back from exclaiming “Jesus!” when she first saw it.
“I was pushing the sheets back to my husband and I am passing them back to him and as I pull forward the last sheet to pass it to Mike he couldn’t see what was behind it and I just said ‘Jesus!'” she said.
“And he said ‘Why, what have you found?’ and I said ‘No, I mean it is Jesus.'”
Apart from a crack here and there or a growth of light mold, the painting is in remarkable condition given the exposure of the barn.
“There is very little damage but it would be lovely to see it cleaned so the colors can shine,” said Worne.
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The artwork shows Jesus on the cross beardless and wearing a plain white cloth. On the left side there is a woman all in blue, possibly depicting Mary, and on the right side a man dressed in dark blue and black.
Memory of a work in a similar style made in England from the 1920s and 30s leaped to the forefront of her mind, until she found a faint signature on the back of the painting which read ‘Teresa Fuller 1951 – 1952.’
Worne said very little was known about the artist and she had appealed for people’s help to find out more about who painted it.
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“I was also hoping that the people in the town of Lostwithiel will be able to see it and give me some history about it,” she said, after bringing it to the church under the blessings of Reverend Sheila Bawden. The previous owner of the barn hasn’t been reached as yet.
“I am intrigued with the story and with the journey that it is going to take me on and who I am going to meet along the way,” Worne said. “I studied history of arts at college and then I went on to paint and do ceramics in China and then I got into teaching.”
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Wonderful story! I’m struck immediately by the fact that Sarah Worne, who bought the property with her husband and discovered the painting is an art historian. It’s as if “it’s meant to be!”
And … I think I may have found a reference to this religious artist, Teresa Fuller, who painted this piece in 1950-1951. She had a work that was featured at the Ashley Galleries opening in 1949 of contemporary religious artists (during that period) and mentioned positively in a review in The Tablet, “THE ASHLEY GALLERIES – An Act of Reparation By ROBERT SPEAIGHT.” He writes:
“Very interesting, again, is Miss Teresa Fuller’s work in tempera ; here one catches something of Paolo da Francesca’s strength and quiet translated into a modem idiom. There is nothing in the least derogatory about these derivations. Indeed, it would be surprising if Christian painters gave no inkling of their ancestry. We are reminded, in fact, that Christian art has been individualist for a very long time ; it has reflected, no less than portraiture and other modes of painting, the epic of man’s splendid and sordid self-discovery.”
https://papyrus.exacteditions.com/issues/70820/page/11
Please pass this information along to Sarah Worne, if she is not already aware of the source. It’s a lovely painting of Jesus, and I look forward to hearing more about this artist and perhaps other paintings she’s done? Wow!
Wow, Toni. Thanks for sharing that. I usually don’t like religious art – especially from the middle ages, but this piece is splendid and really moves me.