Firebacks

  1. 162

    hastings_museum 045a.jpg
    565 x 420 mm
    Image subject to copyright

    Description: Arched rectangular shaped; cavetto-moulded edge; figure of St Paul, a sword in his left hand, holding a viper in his right hand over flames rising from the ground.

    Notes: The scene illustrates an episode in the New Testament, Acts 28: 3. The design shows stylistic similarities to other firebacks where simple, well-executed relief has overlapped the cavetto edging. Formerly part of the Ade Collection (from Grove Hill, Hellingly, Sussex).

    Copies of this fireback are known.

    Manufactured: in the mid- to late-17th century possibly in the Weald area of England.

    Current location: Hastings Museum and Art Gallery, John's Place, Bohemia Road, Hastings, East Sussex, England.

    Museum number: HASMG: 1952.51.25 (part of the Hastings Museum museum group)

    Citation: Butterfield, W. R., 1916, 'Old Wealden Firebacks', The Connoisseur, 46, pp. 197-209.

    Citation: Hamling, T., 2015, 'Seeing Salvation in the Domestic Hearth in Post-Reformation England' in J. Willis (ed.), Sin and Salvation in Reformation England (Farnham, Ashgate Publishing), 223-44.

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

    Citation: Schubert, H. R., 1957, History of the British Iron and Steel Industry (London, Routledge), pp. 256-264.