Stock: 9747
A large antique armorial hatchment, oil on canvas from the 18th century. Of diamond form, showing a crown under which is draped an ermine-edged robe set within which are a lion and dragon rampant holding a diamond panel embellished with heraldic motifs. Wear commensurate with age.
English 18th century.
Provenance: By repute "The arms on this hatchment are those of John Baker-Holroyd (1735-1821), 1st earl of Sheffield. The arms quarter Holroyd, Elwood and Baker, all impaling North." Holroyd entered the House of Commons in 1780, where he was prominent against Lord George Gordon and the rioters but he is chiefly remembered as the friend and literary executor of Edward Gibbon (author of The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire), whose memoirs and other works he edited and published. He was created a Peer of Ireland as Baron Sheffield in 1871 and in 1802 he also became a Peer of the United Kingdom, again as Baron Sheffield. In 1816, he was created Viscount Pevensey and Earl of Sheffield in the Peerage of Ireland.
Notes: A hatchment is a large coat of arms, usually painted on a wood and canvas frame, which was carried at the front of a funeral procession after which they were erected over the door of a deceased person's house. Diamond in shape the hatchment stayed in place for one year, after which it was moved to the parish church where it was usually hung on a wall. Hatchments were used in Britain from the 17th century, and the last recorded use was in 1942 at Over Kellet church in Lancashire. Some churches display numerous hatchments spanning centuries of local gentry families and thus are a good source of information about local history. Look for hatchments over nave arcades or on the walls of transepts.
Link to: antique wall tapestries, panels and paintings
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56"
142.2 cms |
56"
142.2 cms |
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