A buried statue of Christ article, 1954 May 19

              A BUR ED 81 UE OF eRST  Outstanding Artistic Discovery in London  By Joan-Evans, Director of the Society of Antiquaries, 
and 
Norman Cook, Keeper of the Guildhall Museum 
 Reprinted with the accompanying illustration [rom "Th~ Times" of l\lI ay 19th, 1954, by kind permission of the Editor.  Recent excavation of the site of the bombed Mercers' Chapel in Cheapside has resulted in the discovery of an Early Renaissance figure of Christ of outstanding beauty. It is certainly one of the major archaeological finds made in London during this century.  The chapel of the hospital of St. Thomas of Aeon, in Cheap­side, originally part of a house of the Knights of St. Thomas of Acre, was founded by the sister of St. Thomas Becket some 20 years after his murder aridwas early associated with the Mercers' Company of London, who were its patrons. It was remodelled about 1340 and a new'Mercers',Chapel built under the supervision of William Thorne, freemason, between 1518 and 1522.  --The chapel got intO trou151e with the Reformersa5ear y as April, 1535, because it had windows representing a king seeking absolution from the Church -in fact, Henry II doing penance for the murder of Becket. The Hospital of St. Thomas of Aeon was suppressed in 1538, but in 1541 the Mercers' Company, for a very considerable payment, secured possession of the building for their chapel. In 1549 it was "transformed" for use ' as their grammar school. Various other uses followed before it was burned down in the Great Fire and replaced by a smaller chapel in 1682. This was destroyed in the last war.  UNDER THE FLOOR  On April 30, 1954, ' workmen clearing the site discovered a statue of Christ 5ft. below the floor of the chapel, against the east wall of the middle vault, just south of the central line of the building. The slab, 6ft: 5tin. long and 2ft. 3in. wide, was lying on its side, with the head to the northvlt had suffered some damage but not enough to destroy its beauty. It has aroused such interest that we venture upon a speedy, if necessarily provisional pub­lication.  The sculpture, carved apparently in Bath stone, while still Gothic in feeling, seems on stylistic grounds to be of the first  116