91Èȱ¬

The pelican became a symbol of Christian redemption in the middle ages. I don't know quite how old this pelican is, it may be Tudor, it may be earlier but in the photo here I have tried to show what it may have offered its original community: the squat, inelegant, wonderfully motherly generosity to the two chicks for whom it pecks open its breast. In its day this pelican spoke to a far more formally Christian audience who would have read her sacrifice far more specifically, but I think this small brave reddish gold bird moved people in its day much as it moves us, even in this ungenerous age, or at least as it does me. That's why I have tagged this object under the theme of family as well as those of art and religion.