The Good Shepherd

Opaque glass mosaic, designed by William Blake Richmond, executed by Messrs Powell of Whitefriars, completed by 1904



The Good Shepherd is one of the longest-established representations of Christ and features in the iconography of some of the earliest monumental and mosiac depictions of Him. The subject saw a revival in the nineteenth-century. Here it serves as one of the two portrayals of Christ in the ceilings of the the two side entrances to the quire. Once the visitor reaches the far end of the quire he encounters another image of Christ in the Apse: The Risen Christ in Glory between the Recording angels of the Last Judgement.



Brief description: Christ depicted as man with a beard in a white hooded tunic, seated at the centre of a flock of sheep, with a lamb on his lap. His arms are opened in a blessing gesture; a mountain range as a dark blue silhouette forms the background against a golden sky, surrounded by a wreath frame in blue and gold. The whole is set in a square with representations of grapes and vine against a golden background, with an outer frame of scrolling foliage in gold against a blue background. This mosaic panel is the centre of a vaulted arch leading from the crossing to the Minor Canons’ Aisle which is also decorated in mosaic in red and gold, using various ornaments first used in ancient mosaics.



Related quotes:

Parable in John 10:11-15: “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.The hired hand, who is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and runs away-and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. The hired hand runs away because a hired hand does not care for the sheep. I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father. And I lay down my life for the sheep.” (NRSV)



Related work elsewhere: The Good Shepherd, marble statue, 2nd century AD, Pio-Christian Museum, Vatican; The Good Shepherd, mosaic, Mausoleum of Galla Placidia, Ravenna, 5th century AD; The Good Shepherd, mosaic, San Lorenzo fuori le Mura, Rome; The Good Shepherd, mosaic for funerary monument, 2nd half 19th century, Stadtfriedhof Kufstein; The Good Shepherd, mosaic, prob. mady by Messrs Powell of Whitefriars, London, 1888/1915, St. John’s Church, Warminster, Wiltshire