Above the low stalls were paintings, and these in 1560 the College barber was ordered to wash out; his account for the work (6s. 8d.) is still extant. The barber, however, merely covered up the designs with white paint or whitewash, and when the fine old stalls were removed the paintings could be clearly seen upon the wall behind. In 1847, however, in order to produce a surface capable of showing up the canopies of the new stalls then in course of erection, the workmen proceeded to scrape out all trace of the ancient designs, and they had already finished this work of destruction at the top of the walls beneath the string-courses when a Fellow of the College, chancing to stroll in to inspect the work, saved the rest, some of which still remains behind the modern panelling, of which the Eton authorities have certainly very little reason to be proud. After the discovery there was for a time some idea of leaving the paintings exposed to view, or at least contriving an arrangement of sliding panels. Provost Hodgson, however, objected to them as being “superstitious,” and they were consequently permanently covered by the present panelling. The designs, which were fortunately sketched before being covered up, have been described as the finest of the kind ever discovered in England. They were in all probability the work of some Florentine artist of the fifteenth century. Each row of paintings was divided longitudinally into seventeen compartments, alternately wide and narrow. Concerning these Sir Maxwell Lyte, in his excellent history of the College, writes:-- The former contained historical compositions, the latter single figures of Saints represented as standing in canopied niches. Most of these Saints may be identified by their emblems. Under each of the large compartments there was a Latin inscription, explaining the subject of the picture, and giving a reference to the book whence its story was derived. The works most frequently quoted were the _Legenda Sanctorum_ and Vincent of Beauvais’ _Speculum Historiale_, one of the earliest productions of the printing-press, which had already gone through three editions before 1479. According to a practice which prevailed extensively in the fifteenth century, successive incidents of a story were often represented as forming only one scene, the same figure appearing two or three times in different combinations. The whole series was intended to exemplify the gracious protection afforded by the Blessed Virgin, the Patroness of the College, to her votaries in all ages and countries. No less than six of the compartments were occupied by scenes from the life of a mythical Roman Empress. [SN: GROSS VANDALISM]