A fireboard or chimney board is a panel designed to cover a fireplace during the warm months of the year.
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.
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.