After training at the University of East Anglia and at the Warburg Institute, where he was taught by E.H. Gombrich, Nigel Llewellyn was a Leverhulme Trust Research Fellow at Clare Hall, Cambridge before taking up his appointment at the University of Sussex to teach Art History. He remained at the university until 2007 when he moved to the Tate to manage their research operation. Amongst many roles at Sussex, he served as Dean of the School of European Studies and as Pro-Vice-Chancellor and, in addition, was seconded for a time to the Arts and Humanities Research Council, the body that supported the initial research for this book. He has been interested in the visual culture of commemoration and especially in funeral monuments since he undertook an undergraduate project on the Renaissance tombs of Naples and he has published many articles and several books on the subject. In 1991, he curated a major exhibition at the Victoria & Albert Museum, London on "The Art of Death" and published a book with same title (Reaktion Books, London) which reflects his interdisciplinary approach to monuments and to commemorative art generally.
Publications
East Sussex Church Monuments, 1530-1830, edited by Professor Nigel Llewellyn, published 1 August 2011 (vol. 93, xlii + 450 pp., Sussex Record Society, ISBN-10: 0854450750 & ISBN-13: 9780854450756) accessible at: W.S.R.O. [Lib 17926] & The Keep [LIB/500470][Lib/507876] & West Sussex Libraries & East Sussex Libraries View Online
Abstract:In almost every parish church in East Sussex there survive examples of commemorative art - ledger stones on the floor, wall-mounted inscriptions and monumental brasses and numbers of substantial carved-stone funeral monuments standing in chancels and family chapels. Never previously studied as a group, these objects cast dramatic light on the social, religious and family histories of the county. The media and artistic techniques involved in making these works of monumental art are many and varied: they are sculpted, engraved, cast and painted in stone, brass, iron and wood and are of interest to students of local history and of art and architecture. Some Sussex monuments were made locally, with important centres of production in Lewes and in the Weald where the celebrated cast-iron floor slabs were turned out. Other works were made outside the county and brought in, probably by water transport, from London and sometimes from as far away as continental Europe.
At the heart of this volume is a set of catalogue entries, each one dedicated to one of the 1409 items that have been identified as a result of extensive field-work in 144 East Sussex churches. The whole project represents the largest published regional survey of English monumental art ever attempted. Each work included mentions a person or people who died in the period 1530 - 1830 and in each case there are either transcriptions or summaries of the monumental inscriptions. An introductory essay, illustrated by 200 colour plates, outlines the broad historical trends and key developments and sets the monumental art of post-Reformation East Sussex into the broader national context. In addition, the catalogue entries may be studied in conjunction with a complete set of high resolution on-line photographs on the Society's web site at www.sussexrecordsociety.org. A complete index of artists and persons is also included.
Review by Danae Tankard in Sussex Past & Present no. 127, August 2012:At the heart of this volume is a set of catalogue entries, each one dedicated to one of the 1409 items that have been identified as a result of extensive field-work in 144 East Sussex churches. The whole project represents the largest published regional survey of English monumental art ever attempted. Each work included mentions a person or people who died in the period 1530 - 1830 and in each case there are either transcriptions or summaries of the monumental inscriptions. An introductory essay, illustrated by 200 colour plates, outlines the broad historical trends and key developments and sets the monumental art of post-Reformation East Sussex into the broader national context. In addition, the catalogue entries may be studied in conjunction with a complete set of high resolution on-line photographs on the Society's web site at www.sussexrecordsociety.org. A complete index of artists and persons is also included.
Sussex Record Society volume 93 is a catalogue of 1409 monuments in 144 East Sussex parish churches dating from the period 1530 to 1830, compiled by Professor Nigel Llewellyn and a team of research assistants and volunteers. The volume includes colour photographs of 200 of the listed monuments. An accompanying database available through the Sussex Record Society website www.sussexrecordsociety.org provides high-resolution images of most of the monuments listed in the catalogue. Professor Llewellyn's introduction explains the origins of the project and offers an overview of the geographical, demographic, social and economic contexts of the monuments.
The volume and database represent a significant resource for anyone interested in funerary monuments. As Llewellyn points out, such monuments have been a neglected category. Few are considered to have enough architectural or sculptural merit to be of interest to historians of art and design and, until recently, they mainly attracted attention from genealogists and local historians. However, to some extent this neglect is already a thing of the past: over the last few years there have been a number of significant publications on medieval and early modern funerary monuments and their place within mortuary culture by Peter Sherlock, Nigel Saul and, indeed, by Llewellyn himself.
The catalogue entries in this volume provide a physical description of each monument, a transcription of the inscription and some additional biographical and genealogical information. The descriptions and many of the inscriptions reduce the deceased's life and death to series of emotionless facts. Yet over the period 1530 to 1830 the monuments themselves became increasingly emotive. A flamboyant example of this is the freestanding monument at Withyham to Thomas Sackville, son of Richard, Earl of Dorset, who died in 1675 aged 13, which includes life-sized effigies of the child (looking, it has to be said, remarkably well) and his griefstricken parents.
The volume and database represent a significant resource for anyone interested in funerary monuments. As Llewellyn points out, such monuments have been a neglected category. Few are considered to have enough architectural or sculptural merit to be of interest to historians of art and design and, until recently, they mainly attracted attention from genealogists and local historians. However, to some extent this neglect is already a thing of the past: over the last few years there have been a number of significant publications on medieval and early modern funerary monuments and their place within mortuary culture by Peter Sherlock, Nigel Saul and, indeed, by Llewellyn himself.
The catalogue entries in this volume provide a physical description of each monument, a transcription of the inscription and some additional biographical and genealogical information. The descriptions and many of the inscriptions reduce the deceased's life and death to series of emotionless facts. Yet over the period 1530 to 1830 the monuments themselves became increasingly emotive. A flamboyant example of this is the freestanding monument at Withyham to Thomas Sackville, son of Richard, Earl of Dorset, who died in 1675 aged 13, which includes life-sized effigies of the child (looking, it has to be said, remarkably well) and his griefstricken parents.
"The Happy Preserver of his Brother's Posterity": From Monumental Test to Sculptural Figure in Early Modern Sussex, by Nigel Llewellyn, published 17 September 2014 in Art, Literature and Religion in Early Modern Sussex: Culture and Conflict (Chapter 9., Routledge, ISBN-10: 1409457036 & ISBN-13: 9781409457039)