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). Two editions of engravings of de Vos's drawings are known, by Jan Sadeler, dated 1585, and by Gregor Fentzel in about 1650. 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