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Box
unknown - Enlarge image
Box
- Place of origin:
England, Great Britain (made)
- Date:
1670-1680 (made)
- Artist/Maker:
unknown (production)
- Materials and Techniques:
Stamped silver
- Credit Line:
Purchased with the assistance of the National Heritage Memorial Fund and The Art Fund
- Museum number:
T.437-1990
- Gallery location:
British Galleries, room 56d, case 6
Object Type
This little heart-shaped container was among the contents of an embroidered casket used by a young girl, Martha Edlin, to store her small personal possessions. It now takes the form of a tiny box but traces of some sort of fixing on the top edge suggest it may originally have been a locket. The two parts are no longer separable. One side is stamped with the image of a crowned man's head and the initials CR for King Charles II, and the other side a crowned lady, Catherine of Braganza, wife of Charles II.
People
A group of Martha Edlin's (1660-1725) possessions from her childhood, including this box, were kept in the casket, cherished by her descendants and passed down through the female line in her family for over three hundred years. We know little about her life, except that she married a man called Richard Richmond and appears to have been a prosperous widow, with daughters and grandchildren, living in Pinner in Greater London at the time she drew up her will.
