Firebacks

  1. 558

    pet-m-50.jpg
    765 x 846 mm

    Description: Arched rectangular shape; fillet edging; top centre, stamp formed of a carved domestic scene of a family around a table; in top corners, repeated small stamp of St George and the Dragon; below, repeated stamp of a pineapple in a pot; centre; small stamp of the royal arms of the United Kingdom 1801-37.

    Notes: The domestic group has been formed from a decorative iron mantelpiece ornament portraying the tale of the goose that laid golden eggs. Having killed the goose, the family are lamenting the loss of their bounty (see Ames, 1980, p.94). The same mantelpiece group and pineapple stamp can be seen as decoration on the kitchen spit assemblage at Petworth House, West Sussex, which was cast at Robert Chorley's foundry at Cocking, south of Midhurst. Evidently this and another fireback bearing the same ornament stamp were among items from the Cowdray estate sold in 1898.

    Manufactured: in the early-19th century probably at Cocking Foundry in the Weald area of England.

    Current location: Petworth House, Petworth, West Sussex, England.

    Museum number: NT/PET/M/50 (part of the National Trust museum group)

    Citation: Ames, A., 1980, Collecting Cast Iron (Ashbourne, Moorland Publishing).

    Citation: Arnold, F. H., 1900, 'Notes and Queries No. 7: Relics of Old Cowdray', Sussex Archaeological Collections, 43, p. 281.