Casket

This casket came originally from the Smart family of Norcott Hall, Hertfordshire. Family history associates it with a visit to the house by Charles II. It passed by inheritance to Elizabeth Smart, who married John Loxley in the 19th century.

The embroidery on the casket is in exceptionally fine condition. The casket has come to the museum with its wooden protective case, lined with marbled paper, and a pink silk slip cover, made to protect the delicate surfaces of the embroidery. Together these have helped to preserve it from damage and the fading of its fresh colours.

The panels of the casket would have been worked by a young girl, of about the age of 11 or 12, as the culmination of her needlework education, which would have begun with samplers, and the decoration of small objects like pin cushions. She would embroider a series of small panels drawn or printed with pictorial scenes, which would then be sent to a cabinet maker to be made up into a casket, the edges bound with braid. The caskets were fitted with a variety of drawers and compartments, suitable for keeping jewellery, writing equipment and letters, needlework tools, tiny toys or keepsakes. They often had one or two secret drawers, for their young owners' most precious or private possessions; this casket has five, concealed with considerable ingenuity.

Biblical scenes were the most common choice for this type of embroidery, and this example has episodes from the story of Tobias and the Archangel Raphael round some of its sides, with Rebecca and Elizir on the lid. Rebecca may be an Old Testament heroine, but the young girl who embroidered her image here has brought her right up to date, dressing her in the high heels, lace collar and elaborate ringlets of a Stuart lady.