Firebacks

  1. 500

    newbury_museum 01.jpg
    510 x 760 mm
    Image subject to copyright

    Description: Arched rectangular shaped central panel with astragal and fillet edge, pictorial, a bald, naked man, standing on a mound, holding a baton in his left hand, surrounded by leaf fronds to left and right, and clouds above; arched rectangular shaped border, fillet edging, hanging leaf clusters to left and right, swirled lines above, and draped foliage with monogram at base; on top are two serpents and draped foliage.

    Notes: The figure may represent Pheidippides, the messenger between Athens and Sparta during the Battle of Marathon in 490BC.

    Copies of this fireback are known.

    Inscription: TAN

    Manufactured: in the early-18th century probably at Ashburnham Furnace in the Weald area of England.

    Current location: West Berkshire Museum, Newbury, Berkshire, England.

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

    Citation: Hodgkinson, J. S., Autumn 2005, ‘An Ashburnham Fireback’, WIRG Newsletter, 42, Newsletter of the Wealden Iron Research Group, p. 8.

    Citation: Lloyd, N., 1925, 'Domestic Ironwork I', Architectural Review, 58, pp. 58-67.