Details

LOT 0952

Viking Oseberg Box Brooch with Entwined Animals

8TH CENTURY AD

2" (43 grams, 49mm).

A gilt-bronze box brooch formed as a hollow drum-shaped casting with ornament to the obverse and sidewall; the high-relief designs comprising three radiating panels of Oseberg Style 'gripping-beast' motifs with a dome at the centre and three to the beaded border; the slightly sloping sidewall with four panels of S-shaped animals with interlaced tendrils, separated by beaded borders; to the reverse, the perimeter flange supported by two integral blocks supporting the catchplate and pin-hole respectively, the latter damaged and replaced by a second offset hole.

Provenance

Property of a UK collector; formerly in a European collection, acquired 1980s. Supplied with a positive X-Ray Fluorescence metal analysis certificate.

Published

Accompanied by an Art Loss Register certificate.

Literature

Cf. MacGregor, A. et al. A Summary Catalogue of the Continental Archaeological Collections, Oxford, 1997, item 1.1.

Footnotes

Stylistically this is a very early type of box brooch, with a lower and flatter profile than the examples from the Viking age (9th-11th century AD).

CONDITION

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