No. 280. Ornamental Fire-irons, Sixteenth Century.
No. 281. A Box-iron, Sixteenth Century.
No. 282. Fireplace and Pothook.
The fire-irons, as we find them enumerated in writings or pictured in engravings, appear to have formed the same list, or nearly so, though of course differing in form and ornament according to the varying fashions of the day, until at a considerably later period they were reduced to the modern trio of shovel, poker, and tongs. The single pothook, with a contrivance for lengthening it and shortening it, is shown in our cut No. 282, taken from one of the remarkable wood engravings in “Der Weiss Kunig,”—a series of prints illustrative of the youthful life of Maximilian I. of Germany, who ascended the imperial throne in 1493. The engravings are of the sixteenth century, and the form of the fireplace belongs altogether to the age of the Renaissance. The gallows, with its pothooks or crokes of different lengths, appears in our cut No. 283, taken from Barclay’s “Ship of Fools,” the edition of 1570, though the design is somewhat older. The method of attaching the crooks to one side of the fireplace, when not in use, is exhibited in this engraving, as also the mode in which other smaller utensils were attached to the walls. In this latter instance there are no dogs or andirons in the fireplace, but the pot or boiler is simply placed upon the fire, without other support. There were, however, other methods of placing the pot upon the fire; and in one of the curious wooden sculptures in the church of Kirby Thorpe, in Yorkshire, representing a cook cleaning his dishes, the boiler is placed over the fire in a sort of four-legged frame, as represented in the annexed cut [No. 284].
| No. 283. The Fireplace and its uses. | No. 284. A Cook cleaning his Dishes. |
Early in the seventeenth century the fireplace had taken nearly its present form, although the dogs or andirons had not yet been superseded by the grate, which, however, had already come into use. This later form of the fireplace is shown in our cut [No. 285], taken from one of an interesting series of prints, executed by the French artist, Abraham Bosse, in the year 1633. It represents a domestic party frying fritters in Lent. One of the dogs is seen at the foot of the opening of the fireplace.
