MOUNT

A cast copper alloy mount in the form of a female figure of probable late Medieval date (c. 1400-c. 1500). The standing figure is cloaked and appears to be female. She is holding what may be a palm branch in her left hand and apparently an open book in her right. She may be St Barbara. However, there is no indication of a tower that is associated with St Barbara. The figure has an oval base with the remains of a central tang, circular in cross-section. The rear face of the figure is flat. It is possible that the figure is a representation of the Madonna and Child. The object has a patchy green patina. The Oxford Dictionary of Saints has the following description. ‘[St Barbara] was shut up in a tower by her father Dioscorus, so that no man should see her. None the less princes sought her hand in marriage. She became a Christian while her father was away and decided to live as a hermit in a bath-house he had built. Here she made the workman add a third window in honour of the Holy Trinity. In his fury at her becoming a Christian, he nearly killed her, but she was handed over to a judge who condemned her to death. Her father was struck by lightning and died. This was the basis of her patronage of those in danger of sudden death, first by lightning, and then by subsiding mines or cannon-balls. Hence, her patronage of miners and gunners. The first known representation of her is an 8th-century fresco at S. Maria Antiqua, Rome; she is found, often with the equally mythical Margaret of Antioch, on late medieval English screens and stained glass. Her usual emblem is a tower. The painting of her by Jan van Eyck in the museum at Antwerp is probably the most famous representation’ (Farmer, D. H. 1978, 28 ‘The Oxford Dictionary of Saints’. Oxford: Clarendon Press). Similar objects have been recorded from Leatherhead Parish, Surrey and Stowe Nine Churches Parish, Northamptonshire. See, Portable Antiquities Scheme finds: SUR-770542 and NARC-B8C8E7.