Definition of "reredos"

A bad reredos will ruin the best church ever designed; and, although a good reredos cannot convert a bad church into a good one, it may do much to lessen the offensiveness of its badness.

1871, The Sacristy: A Quarterly Review of Ecclesiastical Art and Literature, volume 1, London: John Hodges, page 246

Confusion has reigned in scholarly interpretation, however, because the dark-colored leaves have shown through the succeeding coats of paint across the reredos, interfering with the later scenes.

1998, Paul V. M. Flesher, “Rereading the Reredos: David, Orpheus, and Messianism in the Dura Europa Syngogue”, in Dān Ûrman, Paul Virgil McCracken Flesher, editors, Ancient Synagogues: Historical Analysis and Archaeological Discovery, page 363

There seem to be no remains of wooden reredoses of the fourteenth century, though there are a number of examples in stone.

2007, F. E. Howard, English Church Woodwork, page 137