Master Paintings and Sculpture Part II
Master Paintings and Sculpture Part II
Disc-Head Pin
Auction Closed
January 27, 09:38 PM GMT
Estimate
3,000 - 5,000 USD
Lot Details
Description
Property from the Collection of Robin Bradley Martin
Anglo-Saxon, 8th century
Disc-Head Pin
silver-gilt metal
length 3 in.; 7.6cm.
A similar pin was found in the ruins of Birdoswold Roman fort in northern England (next to Hadrian’s wall).1 The pierced hole on the right-hand side edge of the above pin suggests that it was once part of a linked pair or even a linked triple-set. Sets of two or three linked pins were fashionable in the late eighth century. The most spectacular example is the linked triple pin set from the river Witham, in Lincolnshire,2 and another example, with Runic inscription, was sold at Christies London, 11 Apr 2000, lot 122.
1T Wilmott, Birdoswald: Excavations of a Roman Fort on Hadrian’s Wall and its Successor Settlements: 1987–92, English Heritage Archaeological Report 14 (Swindon, 1997), 49–54
2L. Webster and J. Backhouse, The Making of England: Anglo-Saxon Art and Culture AD 600-900, The British Museum, London, 1991, no. 184