Cracking the Poussin Code: the key to the Shepherd's Monument at Shugborough: ever since the publication in 1982 of The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail, the mysterious Shepherd's Monument at Shugborough in Staffordshire has attracted numerous bizarre interpretations. Eileen Harris investigates its real meaning, following a trail that leads via Poussin's vision of Arcadia to Pelham's Urn at Esher Place, Surrey

Apollo, May, 2006 by Eileen Harris

It presumably became clear after the arch was erected that an architectural surround was needed not only to give it substance, but also to protect the marble relief. 'Athenian' Smart, although he had no experience as an architect, was nevertheless an eminently appropriate person for Anson to seek architectural advice from. He and Nicholas Revett had recently returned from Greece, and were in the limelight following the publication in January 1755 of new proposals for their eagerly awaited Antiquities of Athens, accompanied by engraved specimens of their drawings that had never been seen before. (19) Anson had more than a passing interest in all this: he himself had travelled to the Levant in 1734, (20) he was one of the founding members of the Society of Dilettanti, which supported Smart and Revett's Athenian project, and he was an early subscriber to their book, as were his brother and sister-in-law.

The primitive Greek Doric aedicule framing the Shepherds' Monument and the strange rustic spandrels on either side of the rough-hewn arch seem to be Stuart's earliest architectural work; this also seems to be the earliest use of a Greek-revival order in England, predating the Doric temple at Hagley designed by Smart in 1758. (21) Be that as it may, we can be quite certain that Scheemakers' commission came shortly before Stuart's, and that the collaboration between the architect and sculptor originated in 1755 or 56 at Shugborough. (22)

Encouraged, no doubt, by his brother and sister-in-law, Thomas Anson decided to emulate the Pelham Urn and make Poussin's Et in Arcadia Ego the subject of Scheemakers' bas-relief (Fig. 6), despite the fact that the broad, landscape format of the painting (85 x 121 cm) was wholly unsuited to the vertical space within the tall rustic arch, and could be accommodated only by being heightened and compressed to an upright format comparable in shape to a marble overmantel. (23) These alterations not only destroyed the sombre elegance and elegiac quality of Poussin's masterpiece, they also left an awkward void above the central tomb between the two standing figures. It was primarily to fill this space, and to make it clear that the Shepherds were contemplating the burial place of a person who had lived in Arcadia, that a Gibbsian sarcophagus with a pyramidal lid was added by Scheemakers to the top of Poussin's plain, block-like tomb. (24)

Such rational, practical explanations are, of course, far too prosaic for hyper-imaginative Grail-hunters such as Richard Andrews and Paul Schellenberger, the authors of The Tomb of God (1996). Their insatiable appetite for occult meanings was fully satisfied by what, to them, was an 'astonishing' discovery that the top of the sarcophagus is a 'true square-based pyramid', the centre of which 'marks the location of the treasure--the tomb of God, the holy blood and the holy grail. 'X marks the spot' as the authors say! (25) And what are we to conclude from their astonishing discovery? That the secret of the Grail was communicated to Thomas Anson by the Priory of Sion with which he is supposed to have been associated? (26) That the Shepherds' Monument was erected by Anson as a container of the secret that will be revealed in full when the tablet of cryptic letters is deciphered? It is hoped that the Pelham connection presented here will be accepted as a more credible explanation of the monument and ultimately lead to a proper translation of its cryptic tablet.