Large Viking Age Heavy Bronze Penannular Brooch

Two featuring faux-twisted bezels; bezel formed with overlapping arms and coiled discoid plaques; coiled hoops with coiled arms; bezel formed as opposed triangular plaques decorated with punched ornament. 12.9 grams total, 22-26 mm



Acquired on the UK art market. Property of a Ruislip, UK, gentleman, by inheritance.

Squat-bodied and triangular in form; short tab with rivet hole to apex, ledge with rivet to reverse of the lower edge, displaying high-relief interlaced serpent design with head above the lower edge. 22.3 grams, 32 mm



Acquired early 1990s. From an East Anglian private collection.

The mount is not included in Williams's study of Anglo-Scandinavian stirrup mounts, which is now more than twenty years old. However, it is evidently an example of Class B, while lacking the bear-mask and openwork features. Its design appears to derive from a Class A type (Williams's nos.380, 383) which shares the feature of the facing serpent-head placed centrally on the lower edge.

Comprising: one C-shaped mount with tendril detailing; two irregular pierced pendants with beast-head suspension lug; one lead master for making pendant moulds. 41.7 grams total, 29-46 mm



From the collection of a North American gentleman, formed in the 1990s.

The comparatively recent finds from Lincoln, Hemel Hempstead and Grantham have considerably augmented the number of objects found in England decorated in the Urnes style, the last art style of the Vikings, and indicate that English metalworkers could produce objects of high quality. The employment of these mounts was probably linked with the fastening of puttees around the calves, the so-called wickelbander. Evidence for similar mounts as fastening pieces comes from Leyre (Danemark) and Novgorod (Ryurik Gorodische), and many other localities.