Firebacks

Description: Rectangular; twisted rope edging (top and sides); inscription (‘S’ reversed) across upper middle of plate, with superscripted central ‘I’ (crossed) ; below each part of the date is a twisted rope saltire (145mm lengths).

Notes: A personal fireback, made to order; a similar commission by Giles Moore, Rector of Horsted Keynes, Sussex, in 1657, cost 13 shillings.

Inscription: I / 16 E S 63

Description: Arched rectangular central panel with astragal edging; allegorical figure of Peace, her right arm raised and her left hand holding an olive branch, standing amid the weapons of war; above her swags of drapery and fruit enclosing the word, PAX; arched rectangular shaped border with ovolo-moulded egg and dart edging; top centre, lion's face from which issue festoons of fruit and leaves which descend down each side, suspended from rings; at the bottom, a motto scroll bearing the date; on top, the face of a putto between two descending fish.

Notes: A more-than-usually elaborate border to a typical central panel.

Inscription: PAX / 16 63

Description: Triple-facetted arched rectangular shape; ovolo-moulded edging (top and sides); bottom centre, a vertical distaff or spindle repeated twice; to each side a fillet-edged oval containing the initials S and W; above, either side of the distaffs, two more ovals perpendicular to the first two, with the date split between them; above each distaff, an oval rotated as at the bottom, the initials I T split between them; at the base, a blank rectangular panel.

Notes: An unusual shaped fireback. Formerly at Skipreed, Chiddingstone Hoath, Kent. An example was recorded by J. Starkie Gardner in one of his scrapbooks (Victoria and Albert Museum, Archive of Art and Design (AAD/2014/8)), marked '[?]Warris Westerham Kent'.

Copies of this fireback are known.

Inscription: I T / 16 63 / S W