A fireboard or chimney board is a panel designed to cover a fireplace during the warm months of the year. [1] It was "commonly used during the later 18th and early 19th centuries" [2] in places like France and New England. In warm weather, "a fireboard effectively reduced the number of mosquitoes and other insects, or even birds, that might enter a house through an open, damperless chimney." [3] The "board or shutterlike contrivance" typically "of wood or cast of sheet metal" [4] is "frequently decorated with painting and stencilling." [2] Some fireboards have notches cut out of the lowest edge to accommodate andirons. [3] Fireboards are also called: chimney boards, chimney pieces, chimney stops, fire boards, summer boards.
Among the many artists who have produced ornamental fireboards: Robert Adam; Winthrop Chandler (1747–1790); [1] Andien de Clermont; [5] Charles Codman; [1] Michele Felice Cornè; [1] Edward Hicks; [6] Jean-Baptiste Oudry; [5] Rufus Porter. [1] Examples of decorated fireboards are in numerous collections, including: Historic Deerfield, Massachusetts; [7] Historic New England; National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, USA; [8] Peabody Essex Museum; Victoria & Albert Museum.