Firebacks

Shape: baroque

  1. 452

    lewes,_sussex arch soc 092.jpg
    695 x 805 mm

    Description: Circular wreathed medallion, bearing the right-facing head of a man in classical dress, carried by two naked, kneeling male figures, between them a scallop shell; above the medallion a lion’s face surmounted by a flame; the medallion is surrounded by floral scrolls.

    Notes: The wooden pattern would have had a circular aperture (the frame of which is just discernible) for the reception of the medallion; the same pattern was used to cast a fireback bearing the arms of George Worge, and the stamp of the profile was used on an accompanying fireplace side plate (no. 923).

    Manufactured: in the early- to mid-18th century possibly at Robertsbridge Furnace, Salehurst in the Weald area of England.

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

    Museum number: LH000.998 (part of the Sussex Archaeological Society museum group)

    Citation: Dawson, C., 1903, 'Sussex Iron Work and Pottery', Sussex Archaeological Collections, 46, pp. 1-54.

  2. 560

    pet-m-54.jpg
    830 x 585 mm

    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)

  3. 757

    va_33.jpg
    680 x 870 mm

    Description: Oval armorial bearings carried by two naked, kneeling male figures, between them a scallop shell; above the shield a lion’s face surmounted by a crest of a lion’s head erased; the shield is surrounded by floral scrolls. The arms are of Worge impaling Collier: Worge - gules, a fess ermine, cotised argent, in chief three lion’s heads erased of the last; Collier - argent, on a chevron azure, between three unicorns courant couped gules, as many oak sprigs fructed proper.

    Notes: George Worge (1705-65), of Starr’s Green, Battle, steward of the Battle Abbey estate, married Elizabeth Collier (d.1767) of Hastings in 1729. This deeply detailed fireback might have been cast in a closed mould; it had a circular aperture in the centre into which, in this instance, an armorial was placed; the same armorial is on a fireback, dated 1762, at Great Dixter, Northiam, Sussex.

    Arms: Worge impaling Collier (George Worge)

    Manufactured: in the early- to mid-18th century possibly at Robertsbridge Furnace, Salehurst in the Weald area of England.

    Current location: Victoria & Albert Museum, Cromwell Road, Kensington & Chelsea, Greater London, England.

    Museum number: 686.1899 (part of the Victoria & Albert Museum museum group)

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