Going to Hell in a handbasket

Well, a comporte actually, the wooden container traditionally used for collecting grapes. Here, the unfortunate sinners in Purgatory are being treated to an ice-cold bath, while the even less fortunate souls in Hell get to sit in cauldrons of boiling oil.

The reredos in Narbonne's great unfinished cathedral was created between 1354 and 1381, but was hidden for centuries behind a boring gilded 18th-century altar back. It was briefly glimpsed during renovations in the 19th and mid-20th centuries, but was only finally uncovered and meticulously restored during the 1990s, and revealed to the public in March 2000. The original had 26 square metres of brightly painted sculpture, including 20o figures, ranging from the poor souls here to the saved ascending to heaven. It's well worth a visit if you are in Narbonne.