Laguna Collector to Loan 5 Relics for Papal Mass

By GORDON GRANT

Sept. 4, 1987 12 AM PT

Times Staff Writer

Five rare religious artifacts, some dating back to the early 1400s and all valued at a total of $361,500, will be loaned by a Laguna Beach collector for use when Pope John Paul II celebrates Mass this month in Los Angeles.

The collection “was gotten out somehow from the cathedral in Cologne, Germany, before the city was bombed by the Allies in World War II,” said Richard Yeakel, the collector who runs an antique store on Coast Highway in Laguna Beach.

Christ and Apostles

The oldest and most valuable piece is a triptych of polychrome paint and silverleaf over an oak wood carving of Christ and the 12 Apostles. The carving, thought to have been created about 1420, “is unique in that it depicts six male and six female saints,” Yeakel said. It has been appraised at $255,000, he said.

Another piece, possibly created in Italy and dating back to the 18th Century, is a 5 1/2-foot oak statue of St. Peter.

“He is holding what represents the key to the Kingdom of Heaven,” Yeakel said, “and it is my understanding that the statue will be consecrated by the Pope during a private Mass Sept. 15.”

The statue, appraised at $5,500, represents St. Peter as “life-sized, because people were smaller then,” Yeakel said.

The collection also includes a 15th-Century German Gothic carving of the resurrection, valued at $85,000; a 16th-Century Spanish carved silver pax, or peace, cross, $7,500, and a wooden papal cross from the 1400s, distinguished by three transoms, or crosspieces, $8,500.

Arrangements for use of the objects by the Pope were made by Father Rod Teissere Stephens of the Office of Liturgy in the Diocese of Orange, who is a designer for the Pope’s public Mass on Sept. 16 at the Los Angeles Coliseum.

“Father Stephens just happened to be in our shop about four months ago, and later he called back and asked if they could be contributed for the Mass,” Yeakel said.

The works, given to Yeakel’s shop on consignment, will be on public display there except when they are moved to Los Angeles.