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Details
LOT 0367
Anglo-Saxon Tinned Bronze Openwork Horse Harness Mount
LATE 5TH-EARLY 6TH CENTURY A.D.
2 1/4 in. (26.1 grams, 57 mm).
Disc mount with four pierced lugs to the reverse, openwork design with four radiating U-shaped elements between the arms of a cross with T-shaped voids.
Provenance
Found Southern England.
Acquired on the UK art market in the 1980s.
From an East Anglian private collection.
Literature
Cf. Carver, M., Sutton Hoo. A Seventh Century Princely Burial Ground and its Context, London, 2005, p.234 and fig.115, for discussion of bridle fittings.
Footnotes
The 'zoned' layout of the piece strongly recalls some of the design elements in Kentish disc brooches, where the cells contain inlaid garnets, millefiori glass, meerschaum and other materials (see Arrhenius, B., Merovingian Garnet Jewellery, Stockholm, 1985, figs. 188-193).
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