Fleuron (architecture)

A fleuron is a flower-shaped ornament, and in architecture may have a number of meanings:

1. It is a collective noun for the ornamental termination at the ridge of a roof, such as a crop, finial or épi.
2. It is also a form of stylised Late Gothic decoration in the form of a four-leafed square, often seen on crockets and cavetto mouldings.
3. It can be the ornament in the middle of each concave face of a Corinthian abacus.
4. Finally, it can be a form of anthemion, a Greek floral ornament.

Gallery

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  Ancient Greek fleuron as an anthemion (Greek word for flower), c. 350–325 BC, marble, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City
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  Ancient Greek Corinthian capital with a fleuron on the abacus, from the tholos at Epidaurus, said to have been designed by Polyclitus the Younger, c.350 BC, stone, Archaeological Museum of Epidaurus, Greece
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  Ancient Greek fleuron as an anthemion on a mirror with cover, bronze, c.340 BC, bronze, National Archaeological Museum, Athens
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  Roman Corinthian capital with a fleuron on the abacus of the Baths at Ostia, Ostia Antica, near modern Ostia, southwest of Rome, unknown architect, unknown date
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  Roman Corinthian capital of the Temple of Vesta, Tivoli, Italy, with an oversized fleuron on the abacus, probably a stylized hibiscus blossom with spiral pistil, unknown architect, 1st century BC
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  Gothic fleuron with a square section of a tier of four leaves or petals developing around a prominent central bud, early 13th century, illustration from the Dictionary of French architecture from the 11th to the 16th century by Eugène Viollet-le-Duc
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  Gothic fleuron with two rays of foliage, mid-13th century, illustration from the Dictionary of French architecture from the 11th to the 16th century
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  Gothic fleuron, 13th century, illustration from the Dictionary of French architecture from the 11th to the 16th century
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  Gothic fleuron with stripped of foliage, 15th century, illustration from the Dictionary of French architecture from the 11th to the 16th century
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  Gothic fleurons on a crown of the Virgin, c.1390-1395, terracotta with paint, Metropolitan Museum of Art
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  Gothic fleuron on the Brussels Town Hall, Belgium, by Jean Bornoy, Jacob van Thienen or Jan van Ruysbroeck, 1401-1455
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  Gothic fleurons in the Chapelle de Condat, Libourne, unknown architect, probably the 15th century and restored in the 1860s
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  Neoclassical fleuron on the capital of a Corinthian pilaster of the Fontaines du Théâtre-Français, Paris, designed by Gabriel Davioud and sculpted by François Théophile Murgey, 1867-1874
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  Gothic Revival fleurons from the finials of Cologne Cathedral, Cologne, Germany, by Ernst Friedrich Zwirner, c.1880
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  Gothic Revival reinterpretation of a fleuron on the College of Saint Teresa-Ganduxer, Barcelona, Spain, by Antoni Gaudí i Cornet and Joan Baptista Pons i Trabal, 1887-1889
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  Oversized Neoclassical fleurons on the Romanian Atheneum, Bucharest, Romania, inspired by those of the Temple of Vesta in Tivoli, by Paul Louis Albert Galeron, 1888
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  Gothic Revival fleuron in the George Severeanu Museum, Bucharest, unknown architect, c.1900
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  Gothic Revival fleurons on the Grave of the Alexandru Costescu Family in the Bellu Cemetery, Bucharest, unknown architect, c.1900
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  Typography fleurons

See also

• Flamboyant