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Description: | Unusual medieval copper alloy enamelled disc brooch. The champlevé enamel decoration comprises a blue enamelled bird reguardant walking left, set within curling tendrils reserved on the remains of a red enamelled field. The bird has two three-toed feet; its feet and legs are reserved copper-alloy and are not enamelled. The bird is well drawn, with its left wing folded along the body and just the forward tip of its right wing visible in front of the chest; both wings are embellished with a little copper-alloy curl on their upper forward edges. There is a double collar across the neck in reserved copper alloy. The head has a reserved dot eye and an enamelled hooked beak which is turned back to almost meet the upper, more elaborate tendril; the smaller simpler second tendril is behind the rear leg.A bordering concentric groove around the entire design also contains red enamel to match the rest of the background. Twin lugs and a broken transversely set catchplate contain the corroded remains of an iron pin.The naturalistic depiction of the bird with foliage is similar to examples found on twelfth-century objects produced in Limoges. See, for example, birds shown on roundels in Enamels of Limoges 1100-1350 (O'Neill and Egan 1996, 87-9, particularly fig. 9b, a medallion formerly in the Wasset Collection which may originally have been on the mid 12th-century Chasse of Bellac). Rosie Weetch has seen an image of this brooch and comments that it is difficult to parallel within 11th-century Anglo-Saxon material; she also suggests a comparison with enamelled brooch KENT-9A1278.If a 12th-century date is correct, this is a significant find, as brooches are uncommon in the twelfth century and none are found in the Limoges catalogue.
Original Image | Publisher: | http://finds.org.uk | Source: | Portable Antiquities | Identifier: | http://finds.org.uk/database/artefacts/r... | Go to resource |
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