Manual Ref* SUipIP006 Show 8 images 346
Title*

Sparrowes House (The Ancient House)
County Suffolk   District Council Ipswich Borough Council 
Civil Parish or equivalent Ipswich  Town/Village* Ipswich - Town Centre 
Road Buttermarket and St Stephen's Lane 
Precise Location No 30 
OS Grid Ref TM162440  Postcode IP2 
Previous location(s)  
Setting On building  Access Public 
Artist/Maker Role Qualifier
Not known     

Commissioned by

 House rebuilt for George Copping in 1567 

Design & Constrn period

 Decorated by Robert Sparrow during reign of Charles II (1660-1685) 

Date of installing

  

Exact date of unveiling

  

Category
Abstract Animal Architectural
Commercial Commemorative Composite
Free Functional Funerary
Heraldic Military Natural
Non-Commemorative Performance Portable
Religious Roadside, Wayside Sculptural
Temporary, Mobile Other  

Object Type
Building Clock Tower Architectural
Coat of Arms Cross Fountain
Landscape Marker Medallion
Mural Panel Readymade
Relief Shaft Sculpture
Statue Street Furniture War Memorial
Other Object Sub Type: Extensive pargetting

Subject Type
Allegorical Mythological Pictorial
Figurative Non-figurative Portrait
Still-life Symbolic Other

Subject Sub Type
Bust Equestrian Full-length
Group Head Reclining
Seated Standing Torso
Part Material Dimension
Facade  Pargetting  See below 

Work is
Extant Not Sited Lost

Owner/Custodian

 Ipswich Borough Council (Lakeland main tenant) 

Listing status
Grade I Grade II* Grade II Don't Know Not Listed

Surface Condition
Corrosion, Deterioration Accretions
Bird Guano Abrasions, cracks, splits
Biological growth Spalling, crumbling
Metallic staining Previous treatments
Other  
Detail:

Structural Condition
Armature exposed Broken or missing parts
Replaced parts Loose elements
Cracks, splits, breaks, holes Spalling, crumbling
Water collection Other
Detail:

Vandalism
Graffiti Structural damage Surface Damage
Detail:

Overall condition
Good Fair Poor

Risk
No Known Risk At Risk Immediate
Signatures/Marks  
Inscriptions On panels under bay windows: AMERICA/AFRICA/ASIA /EUROPE On royal coat of arms: HONI SOIT QUI MAL Y PENSE and DIEU ET MON DROIT 

Description (physical)

 A timber-framed and plastered house. 2 stories and attics with a jettied upper story. There are four fine rounded bay windows on the north front of the first floor and one on the west on St Stephen's Lane. The panels below the bays measure about one metre in height and two metres in width. The pargetted figures (identified by inscriptions on the panels) represent America - strong archer with bison - Africa with crocodile - then the coat of arms of Charles II. This is followed by Asia, with exotic tall turban and a spear in one hand, and a censer in the other. She sits besides a palm tree in front of a lion and minarets as she rides a camel with a parrot. Finally Europe, framed by a generic tree is crowned holding her sceptre together with an open book and with a cornucopia. She is set in front of a church with spire while riding a very strange animal. The panel on the corner of St Stephen's lane shows a gentleman approaching a shepherdess with her sheep with Atlas supporting a globe under the bay window. Other decoration shows the Pelican in its Piety feeding its young with its own breast and probably the Phoenix arising form the ashes on the corner with Stephen's. The gables of the windows are decorated with swags - vases of flowers and putti including one showing them topsy-turvy. The first floor windows are divided by fifteen carved wooden posts 

Description (iconographical)

 The key to the decoration is the family's trade as spice merchants - illustrated by Atlas supporting the globe and the four major continents - their suppliers. Robert Sparrow, responsible for the decoration was a strong supporter of Charles - hence the royal coat of arms and welcome from the shepherdess (Ipswich?) for her gallant gentleman (the return of the Stuarts). Some of the continents were based on the standard handbook, Cesare Ripa's widely available Italian handbook the Iconologia published in Rome in 1603 (pp. 332- 338), but only translated into English in 1709. Ripa shows Europe richly dressed with a cornucopia to suggest wealth and crowned with a temple, changed to a church to suggest the Anglican faith. Ripa's Asia is accompanied by a Camel, on which they depended, and censer because of spices (but does not mention the lion, palm tree or building). The turban is one of a number of features which suggest that Robert Sparrow not only bought spices, but was interested in finding out about the regions where they originated. It featured, for instance, in Reza Abbasi's Portrait of (Persian artist ca. 1620) Prince Muhammad-Beik of Georgia. America has been changed from a scantily dressed female with bow and arrow to a man, found in the 1735 illustration of the chieftain Attakapa, by the French artist, Alexander deBatz, a French artist, suggesting that there must have been similar earlier pictures of native Americans. Africans had been shown under umbrellas by Olfert Dapper, Naauwkeurige Beschryvinge der Afrikaensche Gewesten. 1668, p.407 (accessible on the web), but there the figure is fully dressed, with other nearly naked figures behind and umbrellas are shown in other later prints of Africans. Revised 02/04/2015  

Photographs

 Date taken:  22/5/2007
Date logged: 

Photographed by:
Sarah Cocke

On Site Inspection

 Date:  22/5/2007

Inspected by:
Richard Cocke

Sources and References

 Redstone Lilian Ipswich through the Ages Ipswich 1948 35 www.imagesofengland.org.uk 27/05/06; s.google.co.uk/books?iOlfert+Dapper+Naukeurige+Beschrijvinge+der+Afrikaensche+Gewesten accessed 02/04/2015 

Database

 Date entered:  2/5/2007

Data inputter:
Richard Cocke