Firebacks

Description: Central panel, cavetto-canted rectangle with arch; bud and annulet edging (in alternate threes); pictorial panel portraying Europa being carried to sea by Zeus, disguised as a bull; two female attendants wave from the right shore; two putti attend, one below with a bow and arrow; trees to right and left; clouds and sun above. Same shaped, fillet-edged border with floral scrolls top and sides; at the bottom, a cartouche bearing EB monogram between oak leaf and acorn fronds; on top, central scallop shell between floral scrolls with dolphin’s heads.

Notes: The central design is closely based on an illustration by Bernard Salomon, first published in a 1557 edition of Ovid’s Metamorphoses and copied in subsequent editions by Virgil Solis (1514-62). The initials, EB, are likely to be those of the pattern maker. The similarity between the execution of this picture and those on firebacks bearing the SHR monogram suggests the possibility of a common source. Ten rivets are the result of later repair.

Copies of this fireback are known.

Inscription: EB