Head Carving, Melrose Abbey

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Look up on the walls at the Commendator’s House in Melrose and you might spot this grimacing head carved from fine-grained sandstone. The naturalistic carving shows the head of a balding man, smiling and showing his teeth or tongue. His hair is depicted by parallel wavy lines, and the eyebrows and chin are rather pronounced. This may have been a caricature portrait and dates back to the early 1300s.

The head was originally an ornamental feature of Melrose Abbey in the Scottish Borders. For information on visiting, see our website.

227 x 192 x 104mm

MEL/scp/6 | Rae Project