Firebacks

775mm tall

  1. 273

    dorton_house.jpg
    1200 x 775 mm

    Description: Rectangular with twisted rope edging top and sides; central arch with twisted rope edging; date in arch (8 with flattened top); initials repeated in top corners.

    Notes: An unusually large plate to have such simple decoration.

    Inscription: 1648 / TK TK

    Manufactured: in 1648 in England.

    Current location: in private hands, Dorton, Buckinghamshire, England.

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

  2. 1131

    milton_common,_three_pigeons_02b.jpg
    510 x 775 mm

    Description: Arched rectangular shaped central panel with 'nutshell' edging; pictorial: Mercury in his chariot drawn by two birds (possibly ravens) across the clouds, his caduceus held aloft; above are clouds, below is a landscape with plants; arched rectangular shaped border with fillet edging, a scallop shell top centre with descending symmetrical arrangement of vine and acanthus leaves and tendrils; the monogram, SHR, bottom centre; on top is a symmetrical design of scrolled floral tendrils. One vertical plankline right of centre.

    Notes: The design is based on a personification of the planet Mercury in 'Planetarum effectus et eorum in signis zodiaci', by Marten de Vos (1585). Two editions of engravings of de Vos's drawings are known, by Jan Sadeler, dated 1585, and by Gregor Fentzel in about 1650. The holes were for fixing to a grate.

    Inscription: SHR

    Manufactured: in the late-17th to early-18th century in England.

    Current location: not known.