Firebacks

'Dutch' Borderless series

  1. 35

    chichester,_16 priory road.jpg
    ? x ? mm

    Description: 'Dutch' style; arched rectangular shaped with bead edging; figures of a man and woman walking, in dress of the mid-17th century, a page holding the woman's train. followed by a man holding a parasol, and by a horse; they pass between the bases of two columns; above is foliage and clouds. On top are two serpents and three pomegranates arranged symmetrically.

    Notes: The pictorial scene is based on an engraving c.1642 of Friedrich Wilhelm, Elector of Brandenburg, and his wife, Luise Henriette of Oranje-Nassau, by Mathias Czwiczek; one of series of firebacks depicting allegories of the four continents.

    Copies of this fireback are known.

    Manufactured: in the mid-17th century .

    Current location: in private hands, Chichester, West Sussex, England.

  2. 446

    lewes,_sussex arch soc 086a.jpg
    575 x 760 mm
    Image subject to copyright

    Description: Arched rectangular; bead edging; pictorial scene of Venus, naked and kneeling, and Adonis, standing, holding a spear in his left hand, with Cupid to the left, and a hound to the right; pomegranates on top and on each shoulder of the plate, with two symmetrical, descending serpents.

    Notes: Probably based on one of two paintings of Venus and Adonis by Peter Paul Rubens.

    Copies of this fireback are known.

    Manufactured: in the mid- to late-17th century in the Siegerland area of Germany.

    Current location: Anne of Cleves House, Southover High Street, Lewes, East Sussex, England.

    Museum number: LH000.971 (part of the Sussex Archaeological Society museum group)

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