Keystone prints
of the Priory Chapel

The chapel's keystones, the sculpted stones that support the building, are adorned with the heads of ancient historical figures facing East and West. Among these nine sculptures is Saint Louis, Louis IX, the driving force behind the chapel's construction in the 1260s.

With incredible precision, Jean Delivré had the idea of reproducing the heads on the keystones at a height of about 12 meters. He reproduced every line, every hollow and every shadow of the original busts and succeeded in creating reproductions almost identical to the original sculptures. Today, it is Bernard Michel , a resident of the Priory, driven by an irresistible desire to preserve and share these historical imprints who is shaping them in turn.

 

"The keystones, all formed by a leafy disc flanked by heads facing east and west, were enhanced with bright colors of which only traces have been found..." taken from the book The Priory of Bray-sur-Aunette, Its territory and its history, from Antiquity to the present day . Book published by our association, which you can buy from the shop on our site.

 

9 sculptures that we named: Blanche, Louis, Jules, Charles, Augustin, Pierre, Gui, Guillaume and Marie .

These 9 heads represent people who marked the construction and life of the Priory. No element allows us to recognize these characters. Various analyses lead us to imagine that in the first bay, it would probably be Saint Louis and his mother. In the second bay, it would be two young protégés of Gui VII who were baptized Jules and Charles, the third bay is certainly a young canon and the master builder characterized by the hat he wears. We know that the hypotheses attribute to Pierre de Montreuil the master builder of the Priory of Bray, a possible hypothesis because he would have completed the Sainte Chapelle in Paris twenty years earlier. The fourth bay in the transept with traces of strong polychromy and colorful decorations around the two heads, probably represents that of Gui VII. As for the opposite statue, it could still be Gui, this time with a leafy face, turned towards the east, whom we have renamed Guillaume. Finally, at the choir level, a statue facing the assembly could probably be the Virgin Mary.

 

To reserve a statue, please send an email to the following address: prieuredebray60@gmail.com.

Or send a message to Marie de Buyer at 07.68.22.51.75 .