Fireboard

PeriodCirca 1820 - 1840

Place MadeFrance

MediumWoodblock on paper, glued to plain woven linen canvas and mounted on pine strainer frame

Dimensions32.25 × 35.5 × 1.75 in. (81.9 × 90.2 × 4.4 cm)

ClassificationsFireplace T&E

Credit LineGift of Miss Louise Hartshorne, 1944

Object number2001

DescriptionA rectangular fire board, comprised of a wallpaper panel glued to a simple pine strainer frame. The wallpaper panel is block printed on heavy paper, depicting a romanticized landscape scene of a classical fountain under lush trees, with a hilly backdrop. A man, woman, and child, all in pastoral costume, stand beside the fountain. A border of patterned yellow is glued around the top and sides of the fire board. The pine frame support is fastened at each corner by simple lap joints fastened with glue and short brads.
Curatorial RemarksFireboards, also known as chimney boards, were a popular household decorative item used to disguise a bare hearth during the warm months. These boards were popular from the late 18th century into the first decades of the 19th century. Itinerant artisans often painted fireboards with stencils, landscape scenes, or floral images for their patrons. One style of fireboard used wallpaper panels printed in England or France and imported to America. These colorful panels, advertised as "chimney board papers," would be glued to canvas or linen backings, then tacked or glued onto a wooden frame made to fit the fireplace opening. Consumers who could not perhaps afford an entire wallpapered room could purchase such a panel, adding elegance and taste to parlors, bedrooms, and dining rooms. By the 1830s, cast iron stoves replaced the earlier open fires, making fireboards obsolete.NotesThis fireboard appears to have been constructed of a wallpaper panel most likely printed in France and advertised as a "chimney board paper." The elegant, bucolic landscape includes bright greenery, an elegant fountain, and a peaceful background. The panel was donated by Miss Louise Hartshorne (1866 - 1956) and may have graced the fireplace of Portland, the 18th century Hartshorne family home in Middletown. Miss Hartshorne lived with her sisters at Locustwood, a large Hartshorne residence in Middletown village built between 1830 and 1832.

Collections