Carved Figures in the Great Hall

Polychrome wooden corbels in Beaune’s Hôtel-Dieu (15th c.) depict expressive faces with gaping mouths, blending humor and warning. Such grotesques, tucked beneath the painted beams of the Great Hall, reminded patients of mortality while lightening the hospital’s solemnity. Their vivid colors and caricatured forms preserve the medieval imagination in a place of care and devotion.