Oksaal (choir separation)

Oksaal (choir separation), from the church in Helvoirt, Oksaal from oak. On a rack of heavy pillars and sills (ribwood) stands a double cove, on which the floor of the actual singer's stand rests. The latter is surrounded on all sides by a bulkhead. The substructure is sealed to breast height with smooth panels, above which are heavy sills. On these deck beams there is a fence of narrow posts that closes against the upper threshold of the substructure in gothic arcades with tracing. Two compartments of the substructure run like doors, but their window sills lie under the upper sill of the whole. In the continuation of the styles of the substructure, the legs of the double cove rise. The counter of the singer's stand is divided on one long side (facing the church nave) by pinnacles into ten panels decorated with Tudor arches and five by five on either side of one built in three sides of the hexagon bay window. The arches are filled in the corner with openwork Gothic traces. The bay window has a free-hanging drip vault below. A powerfully profiled frame separates counter and coffin. At the bottom of this list is a frieze with superimposed openwork vines, alternated by the drippers, into which the pinnacles of the counter end. A low console develops in the middle of each panel from the pedestal of the grandstand, on which saint figures stood. The other long side of the tribune shot has no bay window and is generally treated more simply. There are gothic arched flat arches between the pinnacles. The narrow sides are partially treated as the front. The doors turn on heavy handles. All styles and sills are gathered with 'fish beak', Ornament, tracery, Helvoirt, anonymous, Netherlands, c. 1500, wood (plant material), oak (wood), h 498 cm _ w 563 cm. (Photo by: Sepia Times/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)