Details

LOT 0326

Anglo-Saxon Gilt Bronze Great Square-Headed Brooch

6TH CENTURY A.D.

5 7/8 in. (75 grams, 15 cm).

With trapezoidal headplate, shallow bow, narrow triangular foot and disc finial, pin-lugs in ferrous accretion and catch to the reverse; the headplate with angled scaphoid panels to the upper corners and band of billets enclosing a band of guilloche with Salin's Style I facing mask at the end of the bow; broad ribbed bow; lappets of Salin's Style I profile horse-heads flanking the junction of the bow with the footplate with small facing mask between the necks; vertical bar running to the finial, bisecting a cruciform panel with Salin's Style I zoomorphic forms; lateral plain lobes; finial comprising a disc connected to the vertical rib. [No Reserve]

Provenance

Found Weston Colville, Cambridgeshire, UK.

This lot has been checked against the Interpol Database of stolen works of art and is accompanied by search certificate no.12780-239463.
This lot has been cleared against the Art Loss Register database, and is accompanied by an illustrated lot declaration signed by the Head of the Antiquities Department, Dr Raffaele D'Amato.

Literature

See Hines, J., A New Corpus of Anglo-Saxon Great Square-Headed Brooches, London, 1997, items 1(b) Alveston Manor, 32(a) Lakenheath IX (layout of headplate), 35(b) Little Wilbraham, 97a-b (Market Overton II and Beckford A11).

Footnotes

This magnificent brooch finds parallels with specimens derived from the group XVI-XVIII, according to Hines classification, from Market Overton II and Beckford A11. They represent, according to Hines, a transitional stage in the introduction of relief ornament into the headplate frame of brooches associated with group XVI.