Anyone who didn’t know their medieval art history wouldn’t have paid much attention to the abandoned carved-walnut lectern. Its 41 intricately carved saints with angular faces and slitted eyes stare dumbly if you aren’t familiar with the time period of their style.
Eleanor Pachaud is, though. She has been studying medieval art history for the past four years and couldn’t believe her eyes when she spotted it under a shroud of dust in the back of a storage room in Trinity College. “It’s clearly very old,” she says. “Until I started doing my research, I don’t think that [Trinity] realized this is probably the oldest piece they own.”
The lectern is almost certainly a valuable 16th-century German antique. How it ended up at Trinity lost among junk is the least of Eleanor’s worries, though. What does Trinity do with it now that they know its history? How do they care for it? And most importantly, how do they prevent someone from stealing it?
Things have been known to go walking at the prestigious college. Geoff Seaborn, the bursar, knows this first-hand. A reward notice offering $500 for an antique bench’s return is pinned up in his office. Several years ago, two guys walked into Trinity, picked up a carved antique bench worth thousands of dollars, strapped it to the back of their truck in broad daylight, and drove away. During frosh week in 1997, someone took an Exacto knife to the large medieval tapestry hanging in Trinity’s dining hall. The cut-out was of a cherub’s smiling face; it’s never been seen since.
“We have an art collection that suits the place,” says Seaborn, “but it’s never going to be museum quality. If we had all the outside doors closed and locked all the time, you could feel comfortable having a fine art collection.”
Trinity, with a relatively small art maintenance endowment of $70,000, won’t have much to spend on this piece of medieval history. Seaborn says the endowment produces about $3,500 for art maintenance every year, but that doesn’t cover much. “It’s fairly expensive to secure, maintain, clean, inventory—all these things take time and money, and there’s already a lot of art to take care of.”
The lectern’s location is being kept a secret for fear it might be stolen. “It’s a great piece of history, but at the end of the day, we have to ask whether it belongs here or with a museum that would appreciate it,” says Seaborn.
Pachaud takes me to see the lectern, agreeing not to blind-fold me to do so. “If anyone knew this was 16th-century Flemish, it’d be gone in a second,” she says, snapping her fingers at a nearby artifact in the storage room. Naturally, she feels protective of the lectern, and is working to see it properly preserved. “It’s sort of become my personal crusade,” she says.
Oddly enough, a famous namesake of Pachaud was canonized for finding a gem among junk, too. Saint Eleanor, who, at the age of 80, is said to have led a group of pilgrims in recovering the long-lost True Cross—the cross Jesus Christ was crucified on—supposedly finding it in a rubbish heap by a temple.
Pachaud smiles at the heavenly comparison, but says neither she nor the lectern is that special. In fact, she acknowledges most people wouldn’t give the gaudy, cracked relic room in their home. It also is not the finest piece of craftsmanship she has seen. “It wasn’t made by someone who’s fantastic at what he was doing,” she says. “He was good, but he wasn’t the best of the best.”
But whatever its imperfections, Pachaud still loves it. Finding something this rare is almost, well, a sign from above.
Sheila Campbell, a professor with the Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies at St. Michael’s College, agrees. She is advising Pachaud on the lectern as a thesis project and says valuable pieces like it are rarely found in Canada.
“We don’t have many examples of work from that time in Toronto. Unlike people in Europe who can see such examples in museums and churches on their doorstep, we don’t have that opportunity here.”
Campbell is helping Pachaud find an appraiser who can professionally evaluate the piece. She’s concerned for its safety, too. “Very often, it’s safer to be out on view than stuck in a cupboard where you can’t keep an eye on it. It should be shown.”
But showing it is easier said than done. Trinity is running a budget deficit, and the money to properly care for the lectern—if it is appraised as a genuine article—will be hard to find. The college has enough trouble caring for the art it already has.
“We know it’s not ideal,” says Henri Pilon, Trintiy’s archivist. “We’re aware that sitting [where it is] isn’t the best place for it to be, but we don’t have a curator at Trinity College.”
Pilon is happy that someone is digging into the history of the piece. Finding a way to preserve it, though, is another matter. The Trinity College Art Committee, which Pilon is a member of, will have to decide the fate of Pachaud’s pet project.
Pachaud is hopeful she can find some happy medium, and she’s going to make a presentation to the Art Committee soon, recommending that the lectern be moved to the Trinity Library. “I want to see this piece preserved for future generations,” she says, running her fingers over the tiny carved saints. “Where it is right now, that might not happen. Trinity College isn’t a museum. The Art Committee does their best, but they’re not a museum staff, either.”
Although money is short, Pilon pointed out that one thing they’ve got a lot of is time. “If it is a 15th- or 16th-century piece, it has survived for 500 years.” A few more months shouldn’t hurt.
