Firebacks

1280mm wide

  1. 10

    alfriston_clergy house.jpg
    1280 x 540 mm
    Image subject to copyright

    Description: Rectangular; rope edging (top and sides); central Tudor royal shield with encircling garter (motto reversed: HONE SOVT QVEY … PEN), separate greyhound and lion supporters, separate crown; a bird, repeated in each top corner, its wings displayed and inverted and its head facing behind and to the left, standing on a scroll; a fleur de lys repeated in the bottom corners; inside the birds is a repeated stamp, part of one noted on a fireback in Hastings Museum.

    Notes: The particular form of the Tudor arms and supporters is frequently encountered; the birds (probably swans, a Lancastrian icon) are also seen on other firebacks, as are the distinctive style of fleurs de lys; the combined use of these three groups of stamps suggests a common source.

    Arms: Tudor royal (prob. Henry VIII)

    Manufactured: in the early to mid 16th century possibly at Pounsley furnace in the Weald area of England.

    Current location: The Clergy House, Alfriston, East Sussex, England.

    Museum number: NT/ALF/M/1 (part of the National Trust museum group)

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

  2. 1006

    halls_(shrewsbury), lot 127 28 oct 2015.jpg
    1280 x 660 mm

    Description: Rectangular shape with twisted rope edging (top and sides); date split between top corners.

    Notes: The central button on the number 1 is consistent with a date in the first half of the seventeenth century.

    Inscription: 16 37

    Manufactured: in 1637 possibly in the Shropshire area of England.

    Current location: in private hands, Wigmore, Herefordshire, England.

  3. 690

    smallhythe_place.jpg
    1280 x 470 mm
    Image subject to copyright

    Description: Canted rectangle; plain edges; broad horizontal fillet dividing the plate in two just above the side angles, with vertical fillets to top corners enclosing date and initials.

    Notes: Uncharacteristically crude for the period.

    Inscription: IS / 16 60

    Manufactured: in 1660 in the Weald area of England.

    Current location: Smallhythe Place, Smallhythe, Kent, England.

    Museum number: NT/SMA/M/38 (part of the National Trust museum group)

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