Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-7cvxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T04:44:05.375Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Two plates from a late Saxon casket

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 November 2011

David M. Wilson
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Two unique pieces of Late Anglo-Saxon silverwork of outstanding interest have recently been purchased by the Department of British and Medieval Antiquities of the British Museum. The pieces are plates from a house-shaped casket, or shrine, of a well-known British type. They formed part of the collection of a Sussex doctor and were purchased from him by the dealer who sold them to the Museum: they are unfortunately unprovenanced, but from external evidence it seems likely that they formed part of a Victorian collection. One of the pieces is rectangular and measures 12.6×5.2 cm., the other is rhomboid and measures along its longest side 12.1 cm., they differ also in their ornamentation which is carried out in a shallow carving, or graving, technique. (pl. v a).

Type
Research Article
Information
The Antiquaries Journal , Volume 36 , Issue 1-2 , April 1956 , pp. 31 - 39
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1956

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

page 31 Note 1 Swarzenski, Cf. G., ‘An Early Anglo-Irish Portable Shrine’, Bull. Mus. of Fine Arts, Boston, 1954, pp. 50 ff.Google Scholar

page 31 Note 2 When purchased the plates were mounted on a piece of nineteenth-century velvet in a Morland frame.

page 31 Note 3 Inventory, B. M. No. 1954, 12–1, 1 and 2: a short preliminary publication of these pieces has already appeared in the B.M. Quarterly, 1955, p. 47. I am grateful to my colleagues Messrs. R. L. S. Bruce-Mitford and P. Lasko for help and advice during the writing of this paper.Google Scholar

page 31 Note 4 e.g. Mahr, A., Christian Art in Ancient Ireland, i, 1932, pl. 18, 1 and 7.Google Scholar

page 31 Note 5 Vide Bruce-Mitford, R. L. S., ‘Late Saxon Disc-Brooches’, Dark Age Britain; Studies presented to E. T. Leeds, London, 1956, pp. 171 ff.Google Scholar

page 33 Note 1 P.S.A. Land, xxi, 68, fig. 2.

page 33 Note 2 e.g. on the Franks Casket (B.M. Guide to Anglo-Saxon Antiquities, pl. VIII) and the Sutton, Isle of Ely, Brooch (vide B.M. Quarterly, 1952, p. 15) but see Cinthio, E., ‘Anglo-Saxon and Irish style Influences in Skåne,’ Meddelanden från Lunds Universitets Historiska Museum, 1947, passim.Google Scholar

page 33 Note 3 B.M. Anglo-Saxon Guide, pl. ix.

page 33 Note 4 Brønsted, J., Early English Ornament, Copenhagen, 1924, fig. 114.Google Scholar

page 33 Note 5 I am grateful for this dating to Mr. R. H. M. Dolley, F.S.A., it is part of his unpublished work on the Swedish coin hoards.

page 33 Note 6 e.g. Sutton, , Stockholm, , Beeston, Tor, etc., vide Bruce-Mitford (1956), pp. 171 ff.Google Scholar

page 33 Note 7 Swarzenski, p. 51, gives a complete list.

page 34 Note 1 P.S.A. Scot, xiv, 286.

page 34 Note 2 Bruce-Milford, See (1956).Google Scholar

page 34 Note 3 ‘The Norse Style of Ornamentation in the Viking Settlements’. Acta Archaeologica, xix, 1948, 74.Google Scholar

page 34 Note 4 B.M. Quarterly, xii, 1937/8, pl. XXIII, 4.Google Scholar

page 34 Note 5 Leeds, E. T., Anglo-Saxon Art and Archaeology, Oxford, 1936, pl. XXXIII.Google Scholar

page 34 Note 6 Brønsted, J., Early English Ornament, London/Copenhagen, 1924, fig. 114.Google Scholar

page 34 Note 7 Nerman, B., Det Forntida Stockholm, Stockholm, 1922, fig. 15.Google Scholar

page 34 Note 8 Haseloff, G.Der Tassilokelch, München, 1951, pl. 1.Google Scholar

page 34 Note 9 Brønsted, J. (1924), fig. 128.Google Scholar

page 34 Note 10 B.M., Anglo-Saxon Guide, fig. 130: The old higher dating quoted, for instance, in the Guide is due to a misreading of a coin of Aethelred I by Hawkins in 1851 I am grateful to my colleague Mr. R. H. M. Dolley, F.S.A., for this revised dating.Google Scholar

page 35 Note 1 Kendrick, T. D., Anglo-Saxon Art, London, 1938, pl. LXXVIII, 1.Google Scholar

page 35 Note 2 Bruce-Mitford, R. L. S., ‘A Late Saxon Disk Brooch and Sword Pommel’, B.M. Quarterly, XV, 1952, pl. XXXIIIa.Google Scholar

page 35 Note 3 A note on this object is in preparation.

page 35 Note 4 Lindqvist, S. ‘Yngre Vikingastilar’, Nordisk Kultur, xxvii, Kunst, ed. Shetelig, H., 1931, fig. 5.Google Scholar

page 35 Note 5 Ibid., fig. 20.

page 36 Note 1 Kendrick, T. D., Late Saxon and Viking Art, London, 1949, p. 91.Google Scholar

page 36 Note 2 Brønsted, J., Danmarks Oldtid, iii, København, 1940, fig. 307b.Google Scholar

page 36 Note 3 Collingwood, W. G., Northumbrian Crosses of the Pre-Norman Age, London, 1927, fig. 187.Google Scholar

page 37 Note 1 Shetelig, H., Osebergfundet, Oslo, 1920, iii, fig. 332.Google Scholar

page 37 Note 2 Kendrick, T. D., Anglo-Saxon Art, London, 1938, pl. LXXVIII, 2.Google Scholar

page 37 Note 3 Kendrick, T. D., ‘Flambard's Crozier’, Antiq Journ. xviii (1938).Google Scholar

page 38 Note 1 Raftery, J., Christian Art in Ancient Ireland, ii, Dublin 1941, pp. 147 f.Google Scholar

page 39 Note 1 Armstrong, E. C. R., ‘Lord Emly's Shrine, two ridge poles of shrines and two Bronze Caskets.’ Antiq. Journ. ii, fig. 2.Google Scholar

page 39 Note 2 For discussion of these see Conway, M.P.S.A. Lond., 1918, pp. 218 f.Google Scholar

page 39 Note 3 The argument in favour of the Irish caskets being reliquaries is noted in Raftery (1941), p. 48. But caution is I think necessary in our terminology concerning the object to which these two plates were attached on account of our lack of knowledge of the English material.