Firebacks

Edging: bead-and-pellett

  1. 92

    hampton_court 05.jpg
    890 x 710 mm
    Image subject to copyright

    Description: Arched rectangular shaped; paternost bead edging (top and sides); Stuart royal arms: shield, garter, helm, crown, crest, supporters and motto; date split between top corners; initials split beneath supporters.

    Notes: Firebacks with royal arms attributable to the reign of James II are, inevitably, uncommon owing to the brevity of his reign. Paternost beads are more usually found as edging on ‘Dutch’ types of fireback. A polychrome casting of this fireback is displayed as the royal arms in St James's church in North Cray, Kent.

    Copies of this fireback are known.

    Inscription: 1687 /HONI SOIT QUI MAL Y PENSE / I R / DIEU ET MON DROIT

    Arms: English Stuart royal (James II)

    Manufactured: in 1687 possibly in the Weald area of England.

    Current location: Hampton Court, Richmond, Greater London, England.

    Museum number: 1010 (part of the Royal Collection museum group)

    Citation: Hodgkinson, J. S., 2010, British Cast-Iron Firebacks of the 16th to Mid-18th Centuries (Crawley, Hodgers Books).

  2. 418

    lewes,_sussex arch soc 052.jpg
    450 x 600 mm
    Image subject to copyright

    Description: Cavetto-arched rectangular central panel with bead-and-pellet edging, head and robed shoulders of a laureated man in left profile; cavetto-arched rectangular border with cavetto-moulded edging and arrangement of outward-facing acanthus leaves; on top, scallops on shoulders of border with cornucopiae over arch.

    Notes: A pastiche of the 'Dutch' style of fireback. Formerly part of the J. H. Every collection.

    Manufactured: in the early-18th century in England.

    Current location: Anne of Cleves House, Southover High Street, Lewes, East Sussex, England.

    Museum number: 1944.24.090 (part of the Sussex Archaeological Society museum group)

    Citation: Lower, M. A., 1866, 'The Antiquities preserved in the Museum of Lewes Castle', Sussex Archaeological Collections, 18, pp. 60-73.