Firebacks

  1. 26

    burwash,_batemans 04.jpg
    360 x 560 mm
    Image subject to copyright

    Description: Quasi-arched rectangular shape with swirled and draped foliage across the top; fillet edging with bottom panel containing indistinct floral scrolls; figure of Plenty/Abundance holding a bunch of fruit, accompanied on her left by a cherub, and receiving a further bunch of fruit from a faun to her right; two cherubs hold foliage aloft.

    Notes: The figure of Plenty is one of the representations in the Iconologia, published in the early 17th century by Cesare Ripa, and subsequently in other editions. They frequently form the subject of firebacks.

    Copies of this fireback are known.

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

    Current location: Bateman's, Burwash, East Sussex, England.

    Museum number: 761087 (part of the National Trust museum group)

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