Reformation relic: Alabaster panel showing the Last Judgment

Art was stolen, smashed and buried in 16th-century Britain. The age of discovery was also the age of destruction. This carved alabaster depiction of the Last Judgment is an example of the richness of medieval art that filled British churches and abbeys – and that came to an end when Henry VIII remade the church and dissolved the monasteries. The Reformation changed Britain from a nation of popular art to one in which art was the preserve of the powerful. British skills such as carving alabaster were forgotten
Illustration: Trustees of the British Museum