Print Selected Image
© The Artist
Copy Caption to clipboard
Maggi Hambling, born 1945, British, Excavations at the Royal Mint, 1985
- Title:
Excavations at the Royal Mint
- Date:
- 1985
- Medium:
- Oil on canvas
- Dimensions:
- 57 x 59 inches (144.8 x 149.9 cm)
- Credit Line:
- Yale Center for British Art, Gift of the Artist
- Copyright Status:
- © The Artist
- Accession Number:
- B1991.27
- Classification:
- Paintings
- Collection:
- Paintings and Sculpture
- Subject Terms:
- archaeological | bodies | bones | death | excavations | genre subject | skeletons
- Access:
- Not on view
Note: To make an appointment to see this work, please contact the Paintings and Sculpture department at ycba.paintings@yale.edu. Please visit the Paintings and Sculpture collections page on our website for more details. - Link:
- https://collections.britishart.yale.edu/catalog/tms:1334
- Export:
- XML
- IIIF Manifest:
- JSON
In the early 1980s, archaeologists began excavating a medieval burial ground on the site of the old royal mint in East Smithfield, London. The skeletons uncovered were the remains of more than two and a half thousand Londoners, all victims of the Black Death that decimated the city’s population in 1348–50. The burial ground was opened specifically to cope with this epidemic with each body being buried in a narrow grave in row after row. Hambling saw a photograph of the excavations in a newspaper and made this large canvas in response to that powerful image, later describing it as a pivotal painting in her career that took death as its explicit subject. As she once put it: "You can fight against the inevitability of death or you can accept it. I think it’s a mistake to ignore it. The greatest art has always been about life and death." Gallery label for installation of YCBA collection, 2020
In the early 1980s, archaeologists began excavating a medieval burial ground on the site of the old royal mint in East Smithfield, London. The skeletons uncovered were the remains of more than two and a half thousand Londoners, all victims of the Black Death that decimated the city’s population in 1348–50. The burial ground was opened specifically to cope with this epidemic with each body being buried in a narrow grave in row after row. Hambling saw a photograph of the excavations in a newspaper and made this large canvas in response to that powerful image, later describing it as a pivotal painting in her career that took death as its explicit subject. As she once put it: “You can fight against the inevitability of death or you can accept it. I think it’s a mistake to ignore it. The greatest art has always been about life and death.” Gallery label for installation of YCBA collection, 2016
Juxtapositions (Yale Center for British Art, 1997-11-19 - 1998-01-04) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition]
If you have information about this object that may be of assistance please contact us.