LOT 1609

Viking Bronze Boar's Head Brooch with Cross

9TH-10TH CENTURY A.D.

2 1/8 in. (62 grams, 56 mm).

With decorative upper surface attached to a plain back-plate with spring-lugs and catchplate intact; the upper face divided by a heavy cast median rib with zoomorphic ornament in the outer panels, arranged symmetrically along the rib with a similar transverse band; the corners of the wider end reinforced with vertical posts ending in heavy lobed ‘ears’; the side panels decorated with zones of interlace ornament and the upper-end panel with a continuation of the median rib, traces of ornamental interlace; the lower-end panel plain; the transverse band pierced by two holes to accept pins (part of one one still in situ) representing 'eyes' on the stylised head; hollow-cast.

Acquired in the early 1990s.
From an old English collection.

Cf. MacGregor, A. et al., A Summary Catalogue of the Continental Archaeological Collections, Oxford, 1997, item 3.18, for type; and Franceschi, G., Jorn, A. & Magnus, B., Mennesker, Guder og Masker i Nordisk Jernalderkunst Vol. 1, Silkeborg, 2005, figs.130-1.

These animal head-brooches were seemingly manufactured solely on Gotland, and have been classified by scholars in various ways: for example, the manner in which the back-plate is formed and applied, or if a plain internal shell was overlaid with an openwork decorative casing. MacGregor classified them according to their decorative criteria, and his scheme is generally followed in Anglophone literature. They began to appear in the Vendel period (earlier 8th century) and continued into the 12th century in a broadly similar form. Our fitting is related to the conventional group of the gripping beast ornament, here very stylised.