DOI issue:
Nr. 336 (May 1925)
DOI article:Gordon-Stables, L.: Old English firebacks
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.19985#0131
mueRnACionAL
GERMAN STOVE-PLATE DEPICTING
MOSES AND THE SERPENT IN THE
WILDERNESS. SEVENTEENTH CENTURY
the Netherlands began to make
itself more strongly felt, that
the taller and narrower plates
began to make their appearance
in any appreciable numbers.
With the advent of the seven-
teenth century we notice the
development of a more accom-
plished technique. Contrast
with the sixteenth-century plate
that from the Shoppee Collec-
tion (and like the others illus-
trated, now housed in the Vic-
toria and Albert Museum, South
Kensington) which is dated
1649, and in which the forms
stand out in higher relief and
with a more flowing, rhythmic
line. There is greater artistry in
the treatment of the decorative
detail and a more evolved com-
mand of their general disposi-
tion. The lion passant gardant
would seem to indicate a royal
plate, yet the inclusion of the
fleur-de-Iys at a date when the
English crown could no longer
lay claim to inclusion of the
French emblem would seem
rather to suggest that the plate
belonged to the estate of some family which that of Scotland, represented by the thistle. The
united in their veins the blood of France with that rim, which is more sharply defined than in earlier
of England, represented by the Tudor rose, and examples, has here learnt to act as frame in good
earnest and there is a lyric flow
in the treatment of such details
as mane and tail, feet and foliage.
Loyalty is the inspiration of
the late seventeenth-century
fireback bearing the initials of
Charles II and commemorating
the occasion when, as a prince,
he had taken refuge in the Bos-
cobel Oak from his pursuers.
The three crowns hidden among
the foliage conclusively estab-
lish this as a fireback struck
under royalist influence as an
historical memento.
ENGLISH FIRE-BACK WITH ROYAL ARMS
OF TUDOR SOVEREIGNS. SIXTEENTH
CENTURY
MAY 1925
one thirty-one
GERMAN STOVE-PLATE DEPICTING
MOSES AND THE SERPENT IN THE
WILDERNESS. SEVENTEENTH CENTURY
the Netherlands began to make
itself more strongly felt, that
the taller and narrower plates
began to make their appearance
in any appreciable numbers.
With the advent of the seven-
teenth century we notice the
development of a more accom-
plished technique. Contrast
with the sixteenth-century plate
that from the Shoppee Collec-
tion (and like the others illus-
trated, now housed in the Vic-
toria and Albert Museum, South
Kensington) which is dated
1649, and in which the forms
stand out in higher relief and
with a more flowing, rhythmic
line. There is greater artistry in
the treatment of the decorative
detail and a more evolved com-
mand of their general disposi-
tion. The lion passant gardant
would seem to indicate a royal
plate, yet the inclusion of the
fleur-de-Iys at a date when the
English crown could no longer
lay claim to inclusion of the
French emblem would seem
rather to suggest that the plate
belonged to the estate of some family which that of Scotland, represented by the thistle. The
united in their veins the blood of France with that rim, which is more sharply defined than in earlier
of England, represented by the Tudor rose, and examples, has here learnt to act as frame in good
earnest and there is a lyric flow
in the treatment of such details
as mane and tail, feet and foliage.
Loyalty is the inspiration of
the late seventeenth-century
fireback bearing the initials of
Charles II and commemorating
the occasion when, as a prince,
he had taken refuge in the Bos-
cobel Oak from his pursuers.
The three crowns hidden among
the foliage conclusively estab-
lish this as a fireback struck
under royalist influence as an
historical memento.
ENGLISH FIRE-BACK WITH ROYAL ARMS
OF TUDOR SOVEREIGNS. SIXTEENTH
CENTURY
MAY 1925
one thirty-one