Firebacks

Description: Arched rectangular shaped central panel with open-bud edging; pictorial: Venus in her chariot drawn by doves, with her child, Cupid; a heron flies away to the left; above are swagged curtains and a pair of tassels, below is a landscape; arched rectangular shaped border with fillet edging, a scallop shell top centre with symmetrical arrangement of vine and acanthus leaves and tendrils; the monogram, SHR, bottom centre; above is a symmetrical design of scrolled floral tendrils.

Notes: The design is derived from a personification of the planet Venus in 'Planetarum effectus et eorum in signis zodiaci', by Marten de Vos (1585); the flying heron has been copied from a print by Wenceslaus Hollar c.1658. The theft, in 1699, from a Thames-side warehouse of several firebacks, included '6 of Venus in a Chariot with Doves', which is likely to refer to this type (Post Boy 11-14 Nov. 1699).

Copies of this fireback are known.

Inscription: SHR