An oak choirstall fragment showing Jonah seated amongst foliage

This is an evocative fragment from a larger carved panel believed to have been produced to decorate a series of choirstalls for a wealthy Rhenish church. It shows the figure of Jonah seated amongst the sprouting, verdant branches of an oak sapling framed by the shallow gothic archways of an arcaded space. He points to our left, and was almost certainly once joined by other figures who together would have helped to visualise - in vivid shallow relief - the parables and events of the Bible for the monastic or clerical community who gathered to pray together in the religious house for which it was carved. Stylistically, it has links to the choirstalls of Cologne Cathedral, which were produced between 1308 and 1311 and represent one of the largest surviving medieval choirstalls in the whole of Germany.