Details

LOT 0464

Anglo-Saxon Gold Chip-Carved Animal Mask and Raven Pairs Cruciform Brooch

LATE 6TH CENTURY AD

5 1/2" (74 grams, 14 cm).

A chip-carved gilt-bronze cruciform bow brooch with square headplate flanked by rectangular flanges; to the top and sides, three openwork panels each formed as a male mask with bird-heads developing from the beard; the central panel with billetted edging and quatrefoil motif; the bow deep with facetted corners and central stud; the footplate with quatrefoil motif and Style I animal lappets, a thick transverse triple collar and mask below, with peltoid panel and recurved bird-head terminals; to the reverse, the pin-lugs and catchplate flanking the bow, ferrous accretion from the pin; almost 100% of the original gilding remaining.

Provenance

From an old Norfolk collection; found Norfolk, UK in the 1980s.

Literature

Cf. MacGregor, A. & Bolick, E. A Summary Catalogue of the Anglo-Saxon Collections (Non-Ferrous Metals), item 12.37; cf. the florid cruciform brooch from Sporle, Norfolk, with similar mask-between-bird-heads motifs, published in Leeds, E. T. and Pocock, M. A Survey of Anglo-Saxon Cruciform brooches of Florid Type, in Medieval Archaeology, 1971.

Footnotes

The brooch is a very fine example of the 'florid' type of cruciform brooch in which the three knops of the original brooch type have become broader and flatter, developing into ornamental (or symbolic?) panels often with openwork motifs. Initially the two lateral knops remained plain while the top one extended into a more ornate form; the side knops were eventually formed similarly and by the early 7th century AD all three had fused into a tracery of scrolled tendrils forming an extension to the headplate. The present brooch can be placed late in the 6th century when the process of elaboration was already underway but the three elements were still separate. The motif of the 'male face flanked by bird-heads' which was adopted for the headplate knops here also appears on a series of contemporary (?) scabbard fittings which appear in southern England and the Low Countries; it has been suggested that they reference the god Woden, who is better known in his Scandinavian guise of Óðinn (Odin), who also has two ravens which fly out over the world and report back with their news.

CONDITION