How you can use this image
This image can be used for non-commercial research or private study purposes, and other UK exceptions to copyright permitted to users based in the United Kingdom under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, as amended and revised. Any other type of use will need to be cleared with the rights holder(s).
Review the copyright credit lines that are located underneath the image, as these indicate who manages the copyright (©) within the artwork, and the photographic rights within the image.
The collection that owns the artwork may have more information on their own website about permitted uses and image licensing options.
Review our guidance pages which explain how you can reuse images, how to credit an image and how to find images in the public domain or with a Creative Commons licence available.
Notes
Add or edit a note on this artwork that only you can see. You can find notes again by going to the ‘Notes’ section of your account.
In the early 1980s, archaeologists began excavating a medieval burial ground on the site of the old royal mint in East Smithfield, London. The skeletons uncovered were the remains of more than two and a half thousand Londoners, all victims of the Black Death that decimated the city’s population in 1348–1350. The burial ground was opened specifically to cope with this epidemic with each body being buried in a narrow grave in row after row. Hambling saw a photograph of the excavations in a newspaper and made this large canvas in response to that powerful image, later describing it as a pivotal painting in her career that took death as its explicit subject. As she once put it: 'You can fight against the inevitability of death or you can accept it.
Title
Excavations at the Royal Mint
Date
1985
Medium
oil on canvas
Measurements
H 144.8 x W 149.9 cm
Accession number
B1991.27
Acquisition method
gift of the artist
Work type
Painting
Yale Center for British Art
1080 Chapel Street, New Haven, Connecticut 06510-2302, USA,
-
Archibald, 5th Marquess of Aberdeen and Temair National Trust for Scotland, Haddo House -
Victor Musgrave National Portrait Gallery, London -
A Sculpture for Mary Wollstonecraft -
Frances Rose (2) Jerwood Collection -
Good Friday: Walking on Water, 2006 Methodist Modern Art Collection -
Sleepwalker Norfolk Museums Service -
Preparatory Study for 'The Head of a Warder at the National Gallery' Norfolk Museums Service - 82 more