‘Christian Gravestone’

Engraving by ‘W. J. M.’ (made after a drawing by Arthur Evans) of a decorated cross in a graveyard at Tassorič, Bosnia and Herzegovina, being a cutting from the British illustrated newspaper The Graphic, 9 October 1875, p.348, captioned at bottom of the page ‘Christian Gravestone, Tassoric, Herzegovina’.

Artist: ‘W. J. M.’ (initials of engraver), after an original drawing by Arthur John Evans
Date of publication: 9 October 1875
Continent: Europe
Geographical area: Southern Europe
Country: Bosnia and Herzegovina
Region/Place: Tassorič
Cultural group: European Bosnian
Format: Woodcut engraving
Size: 95 x 43 mm
Acquisition: Joan Evans. Donated August 1941

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Primary documentation: ‘[p.588] Dr. JOAN EVANS, from the property of the late SIR ARTHUR EVANS, Youlbury, Boars Hill, Oxford. [List of items follows]’; ‘[p.590] 5 illustrations cut from a periodical - Scenery etc. BALKANS’: Pitt Rivers Museum accession records (Donations X, 1937–1941), pp.588, 590.

Research notes: It has been identified by Philip Grover that this woodcut engraving by ‘W. J. M.’ (initials of unidentified engraver) was published in the British illustrated newspaper The Graphic, 9 October 1875, p.348, printed with the caption ‘Christian Gravestone, Tassoric, Herzegovina’. A similar engraving of the same cross was subsequently published in Arthur J. Evans, Through Bosnia and the Herzegóvina on Foot during the Insurrection, August and September 1875 (London, 1876), p.357, printed with the caption ‘Christian Monuments, Tassorič’. Evans recorded in the volume: ‘The seat on which we quaffed our mocha here was supported by two fragmentary bases of Roman columns; but in a graveyard hard by, which we had leisure to examine, were modern monuments of still greater interest. These were the gravestones of the Roman Catholic inhabitants of Tassorić, which were ornamented with incised crosses and floral devices of an elegance indeed surprising when it is remembered that these were the work of rude peasants, unable to write even the names of their departed kinsmen whom the wished to honour’: Through Bosnia and the Herzegóvina, p.356.