Tile Panel thumbnail 1
Image of Gallery in South Kensington
On display at V&A South Kensington
Ceramics, Room 138, The Harry and Carol Djanogly Gallery

Tile Panel

late 13th century (made)
Artist/Maker
Place of origin

Large fragment of a tile roundel of red earthenware inlaid with white clay. The design depicts a man in chain mail fighting with a lion. The fragment has been restored to form a complete roundel. In the middle is a group of a man in chain mail fighting with a lion, within a circular medallion surrounded by a border of grotesque monsters, some of which have human heads. The angles of the panel are filled in with foliage on symmetrically scrolled stems.


Object details

Categories
Object type
Materials and techniques
Red earthenware inlaid with white clay. Yellow lead glaze.
Brief description
One of five tiles of red earthenware impressed with part of a design probably illustrating the story of Samson and the Lion, inlaid with white clay and glazed. Originally from Chertsey Abbey, Surrey. English, late 13th century.
Physical description
Large fragment of a tile roundel of red earthenware inlaid with white clay. The design depicts a man in chain mail fighting with a lion. The fragment has been restored to form a complete roundel. In the middle is a group of a man in chain mail fighting with a lion, within a circular medallion surrounded by a border of grotesque monsters, some of which have human heads. The angles of the panel are filled in with foliage on symmetrically scrolled stems.
Dimensions
  • Overall; taken from register length: 14 3/4in
  • Overall; taken from register width: 14 3/4in
Style
Credit line
Transferred from H.M. Office of Works
Object history
Originally from Chertsey Abbey in Surrey.

Historical significance: This tile roundel is from a series depicting scenes of combat, some of which illustrate the romance of Richard Coeur de Lion. Roundels from this series normally occur fired in four separate sections which were then laid as part of a complex mosaic arrangement. However, this roundel has been made in one section, and is comparable to a fragment in the BM (Cat no. 9085 in Eames, see References). Such roundels appear to have been used in a simplified mosaic arrangement with border tiles of the type as in 444A to D-1905.
Production
Originally from Chertsey Abbey in Surrey.
Subjects depicted
Bibliographic references
  • Eames, Elizabeth. Catalogue of Lead-Glazed Eartheware Tiles in the Department of Medieval and Later Antiquities British Museum Vol.1, London : British Museum Publications Ltd., 1980, pp144-7.
  • Shurlock, Manwaring, Tiles From Chertsey Abbey, London, 1885, pl.33.
Collection
Accession number
444-1905

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Record createdJanuary 6, 1998
Record URL
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