Firebacks

  1. 560

    pet-m-54.jpg
    830 x 585 mm
    Image subject to copyright

    Description: Quasi-arched rectangular shape with symmetrical double fillet rococo edging; high relief pictorial battle scene with mounted knights carrying lances and pennants.

    Notes: The battle scene may have been inspired by more than one classical portayal of a battle in history; likely sources are 'The Defeat of the Pisans at the Tower of St Vicenzo' by Giorgio Vasari and 'Alexander the Great's crossing of the Granicus' by Charles Le Brun. An engraving by Daniel Kellerthaler (1574-1648) has a similar frame enclosing an unidentified cavalry conflict.

    Copies of this fireback are known.

    Manufactured: in the late-18th to early-19th century in England.

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

    Museum number: NT/PET/M/54 (part of the National Trust museum group)