Firebacks

Description: Arched rectangular shaped central panel, bead edging, bust of female figure with long hair and eastern crown decorated with flowers; arched rectangular shaped border with fillet edging; leafed, Corinthian column on each side with symmetrical swirls of foliage above and a row of acanthus leaves below.

Notes: The figure is that of the Virgin, part of the arms and crest of the Mercers’ Company: Issuant from a Bank of clouds a Figure of the Virgin couped at the shoulders proper, vested in a crimson robe adorned with gold, the neck encircled by a jewelled necklace, crined Or and wreathed about the temples with a chaplet of Roses alternately Argent and of the first, and crowned with a Celestial Crown. The arms were first recorded in 1568. One of a small series of firebacks with similar proportions and detail.

Copies of this fireback are known.