Details on the huge and very cool colonial andiron slowly being revealed

[Bill D. (VA)]

If everyone remembers, my buddy Dan and I extricated this large and unusual iron artifact a few weeks ago. It was entangled in a giant mass of roots on a slope just above a spring stream, and adjacent to a colonial site we were hunting that dates to the 17th century. I volunteered to take the 20+ pound artifact home and try to clean it up with electrolysis. It's been in the tank for about 3 weeks now, and its been a very slow process and still has quite a ways to go. But some interesting details are starting to be revealed. Especially interesting is the top which looks like the head of an Aztec, Incan or Egyptian queen with the facial details showing up nicely along with what appears to be some sort of headdress or crown on her head. Further down it looks like I can see folded arms. On the back you can see where the horizontal bar that supported the wood was attached. Even once I get this totally cleaned up in a few more weeks I'm not sure how well this piece will display as the subtle features may be hard to make out with the dark background. But none-the-less, I'm going to see this project through until the end and we'll see how things turn out. The first pic below shows how it appeared immediately after recovery in the woods, and the remainder were taken this morning showing progress made thus far. I'm assuming this may date to the mid-1600s to mid-1700s, but please chime in if you can more precisely ID this piece. Based on its huge size, it must have been used in a very large fireplace in the manor house we know exists somewhere on this site.

** Sorry but the pics didn't load in proper sequence (yet again!). The 3rd pic shows the andiron immediately after recovery.

 

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[voodoo]

looking really cool! most people would have passed that over......maybe? very neat!

 

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[Bill D. (VA)]

Great find there, and some fantastic detail peeking through. The only andirons I know anything about are the CW era ones which were made of brass. I'm hopeless for the earlier ones, unless there happens to be a photo or info in one of Hume's books... I don't recall any mention of them there though.

Buck - I've been searching far and wide both in reference books and online and have found almost nothing on colonial andirons. Last evening I sent these pics to an expert in Williamsburg, and hopefully he can shed some light on this. If he can help I'll definitely post up his comments.