Month: December 2021

18. The Last Duel

Jeremy Hodgkinson

Having a keen interest in firebacks I am wont to peer into the recesses of fireplaces wherever I come across them in the hope of spotting some unrecorded gem. This even extends to historical documentaries and dramas on television and in films, in the hope that if I spot one I might be able to visit the place where it was filmed and add it to my ever-expanding database.

I did not expect to be doing so when I went to the cinema a few weeks ago to see Ridley Scott’s latest film, ‘The Last Duel’, which is set in late-14th century France. I enjoyed the film and it was evident that, for the most part, the production manager, Arthur Max, the art directors and their teams had striven to recreate a convincing medieval ‘feel’ to the film in the choice of locations and in the lighting and costume. Several historic sites were chosen to represent the places where scenes from the story occurred, as well as some interiors being created on sound stages at Bray in the Republic of Ireland.

Scene from the film in the hall of Jean de Carrouges

However, I could not help but peer behind the characters talking on camera into the adjacent fireplaces, and what did see? firebacks! But this was supposed to be 14th-century France and cast iron, from which firebacks were made, was not introduced into France until well into the 15th century and certainly could not have produced the styles of firebacks that were being illuminated, some of which were of 17th-century date. A press release put out by Disney on 21 October 2021, the day the film opened in the USA, made much of the film’s authenticity but was this mere inattention to detail or something worse?

The fireplace at Chateau de Beynac
A 1648 fireback of the same type as appears in Jean de Carrouges’ hall

I began to research the locations used for filming and found one named in the press release where there was a fireplace with a fireback I could identify in several scenes. It was in the hall of one of the principal characters, Jean de Carrouges (played by Matt Damon). Chateau de Beynac is in the Dordogne and in its Great Hall is a grand fireplace with a fireback displaying three doves with olive branches, typical of those made in Germany for the Dutch market in the mid-17th century. How can the presence of such a specifically identifiable object be in any way authentic to a 14th-century setting? Could they not move the fireback, or was leaving it deliberate?

Scene from the film in Pierre d’Alençon’s hall
Fireback dated 1653 of the type in Pierre d’Alençon’s hall

I searched other locations mentioned in the press release and on other websites but could find none of the other fireplaces visible in the film. I am guessing that they were in scenes with settings recreated on sound stages, for the press release made much of the ‘attention to detail’ that included replicating the texture of stonework. One such scene was the hall of Pierre d’Alençon (played by Ben Affleck), where there was another fireback. The Disney Company’s website disclosed that this was constructed in the studio, so the fireback must have been deliberately brought in as a prop. But why choose one that probably dated to 1653?

Scene from the film in the Carrouges’ bedroom
Scene from the film in Jacques le Gris’ room

I spotted two other firebacks in the film: one in the bedroom of Jean and Marguerite de Carrouges (played by Jodie Comer); the other in the room of Jacques le Gris (played by Adam Driver). Neither, of course, could have conceivably been present in 1386. Deliberately including firebacks when they are not of the period is an avoidable error and inevitably diminishes the claims made by the film’s producers of its ‘attention to detail’.

17. John Knight’s fireback

Jeremy Hodgkinson
Chawton House, Hampshire (photo: Charles D. P. Miller; https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

A distinctive, but rather worn, fireback is one of the features of Chawton House, near Alton in the north of Hampshire, that was noted in both of the articles that have been written about the place in Country Life. Best known now for its association with the novelist, Jane Austen, whose brother Edward inherited it, the house was built in 1580 by John Knight and passed down through the family, and various distant relatives and in-laws who all changed their names to Knight, until sold on a long lease in 1992 to a charitable trust as a study centre for early women’s writing.

The version of the ‘Armada’ fireback from which the Chawton back was derived

The fireback is a variant of one of the forms of the frequently copied ‘Armada’ back; so-called because of its decoration with one or more anchors and the date 1588. These firebacks come in several versions because, unlike most others, their moulds were formed from the assembly of a number of interchangeable panels. The Chawton fireback would have started off in the version seen here which comprises a repeated outer panel showing a vine and bunches of grapes, a single central panel with an anchor with a coil of rope, two fleurs-de-lys and some roses, and a semi-circular panel on top which contains the date and the initials, IFC. In Domestic Metalwork 1640-1820 (1994), Belinda Gentle’s compendious revision of Rupert Gentle and Rachael Feild’s English Domestic Brass, she asserted that the letters stood for In Factiem Concepta, or ‘In Commemoration of the Dead’ but the phrase does not mean that, if indeed it means anything at all. Instead the initials probably relate to the person or people for whom the original fireback was made.

John Knight’s fireback in the Hall fireplace at Chawton House

The casting at Chawton, however, has two significant differences: firstly, the initials have been replaced by IK; secondly, the back has been extended to each side and below, with a saltire of twisted rope on each side. This last feature was apotropaic and would have added a perceived measure of protection from malign forces that might enter the house down the chimney. What seems to have happened is that, sometime in its history, the original fireback with the IFC initials was used as the pattern to make a larger casting and the opportunity was taken to alter the initials to IK in honour, or more likely commemoration, of John Knight, who died in 1620. In its original form the fireback would not have been large enough for the fireplace where it stands to this day, so it is perhaps understandable that an easy solution would have been to make a larger copy and to personalise it in the process. Over the years, and it is probably the fireback noted in the inventory of Sir Richard Knight in 1679, constant corrosion from the flames of the fire wore the detail of the decoration away and caused the metal to crack badly.

The 19th-century recasting of John Knight’s fireback (digitally reassembled)

In his recollections of changes at the house made since he was a boy, Montagu Knight related in about 1910 that his father, Edward Knight (1794-1879), had a new casting made from the older fireback because it was in such a poor state, but that this had later cracked and Montagu had the older back repaired and put back where it remains to this day. The nineteenth-century replacement fireback survives in two pieces and I was shown it in the stables and have been able to reunite the two pieces digitally. A further extension had been added with four more saltires, and it was evident that in the time since the earlier Chawton fireback had been used to cast the later one the former had suffered even more wear.

More about the ‘Armada’ firebacks can be read in The ‘Armada’ fireback family.