Firebacks

  1. 682

    sedlescombe,_mabbs cottage.jpg
    860 x 680 mm

    Description: Rectangular, with detached pediment joined by mirrored S-shaped scrolls; fillet edging with scalloping on inside edge (top and sides of rectangle, and pediment, only); central Tudor rose with surrounding garter, crowned lion and dragon supporters, surmounted by a helmet, mantling and crowned lion passant crest; initials, ER, separated by crest; initials, TP, in top corners of rectangle; ‘date’ split between bottom corners.

    Notes: Stylistically of the late 16th or very early 17th centuries, the date is absent from some versions, and is likely to have been added spuriously to later recastings, of which this is one, the style of the numerals being identical to a series of firebacks cast in 1648-58.

    Copies of this fireback are known.

    Inscription: E R / T P / 1558

    Manufactured: in the mid 17th century possibly at Tintern Furnace in the Forest of Dean area of Wales.

    Current location: in private hands, Sedlescombe, East Sussex, England.