Firebacks

Description: Cast-iron fireback consisting of a panel with an arched top and scrolled ears. Decorated with reliefs, foliate borders at the sides, and in the centre with a coat of arms consisting of a shield, three castles separated by a chevron with an open compass, and with crest of a bird with a leafed branch in its beak, all elaborated with foliage. Motto along arched crest; motto in scroll below arms; maker’s name along bottom.

Notes: The arms are essentially those of the Premier Grand Lodge of England, granted in 1717, differenced by the motto; the Massachusetts Lodge was founded in 1733; the blazon is an adaptation of the arms of the Worshipful Company of Masons. Joseph Webb was a Boston ironmonger and chandler; his 1765 trade card was designed by fellow Freemason Paul Revere, who may also have cast the fireback.

Copies of this fireback are known.

Inscription: THE • FREE • MASONS • ARMS / FOLLOW • REASON / SOLD • BY • JOSEPH • WEBB • BOSTON

Arms: Massachusetts Grand Lodge of Freemasons

Description: Carved wooden fireback pattern. Arched rectangular shape with fillet and cavetto-moulded edging; a canopy with swagged drapery descending from ribbon bunches, beneath which stand two figures: behind, a female angelic figure, right breast exposed, blowing a trumpet held in her left hand and holding an arched rectangular shield in her right hand; in front, a classically dressed male figure wearing a face mask; slatted extensions to the side and bottom; two battens to the rear of the pattern, visible at the top.

Notes: The significance of the scene has not been identified. Christie's auction 3 Jul 2002 lot 160 (£588).

Description: Rectangle; no edging; date just above centre; initials above date.

Notes: The disparity between the quality of the stamping of the date and initials may be because the date has been stamped from a single block. There are stylistic similarities with the memorial plate to John and Ann Luck, dated 1771, in Wadhurst church porch, Sussex.

Inscription: I H / 1776

Description: Arched rectangular central panel with overlapping leaf edging; pictorial scene of Poseidon/Neptune holding a trident in this right hand, and grasping the reins of two hippocampi in his left hand; beneath his feet a scallop shell, and to his lower left a putto blowing a horn; suspended above him an assemblage of shells; stepped-arched rectangular shaped border with scalloped fillet edging; top centre, scallop shell with a descending arrangment of seashells and seaweed; on top, a scallop shell between two putti and below them, two dolphins.

Notes: An uncharacteristically elaborate version of the usual 'Dutch' style of fireback, suggesting a later date, or possibly a pastiche.

Description: Arched rectangular shape with sloped spandrels; stepped fillet-moulded edging; pictorial scene of a behatted woman and a girl standing behind a kneeling cloaked figure of a man wearing a pointed cap and holding an open book, with a cross above it; to the left a cottage with trees and ground; to the right the frame of a building.

Notes: The scene is entitled 'Frère Luce', copied from an engraving by Nicolas Larmessin III (1656-1725), of a painting (now lost) by Nicolas Vleughels (1668-1737), from 'Suites d'Estampes Nouvelles pour les Contes de La Fontaine' (c.1736-43).

Copies of this fireback are known.

Description: Complex quasi-arched rectangular shape with astragal and fillet edging; within a parallel border and a rococo cartouche an oval shield (argent, a lion rampant sable, crowned, armed and langued gules), surmounted by a ducal coronet, and a bishop's mitre and crozier; above, a bishop's hat with trailing tassels; below, a compartment semie with diamond shapes.

Notes: Henri-Louis-René de Nos (1717-93) was abbot of Saint-Sauveur de Redon in 1747 and later, successively, Bishop of Rennes and of Verdun.

Arms: Henri-Louis-René de Nos

Description: Rectangular with arched, mirrored, scrolls on top, surmounted by the winged face of a cherub; fillet edging continued into mirrored scrolls over the top; on either side, scrolled stylised seed pods; central scene of King David beneath a baldachin standing on a plinth, playing a harp to his left; to his left a child plays the violin, to his right another plays a trumpet, both stand on low plinths; at the bottom, a rectangular panel with an oval within a cartouche between swirled foliage.

Notes: An untypical religious-inspired subject with notably rococo design elements.

Copies of this fireback are known.