Tunbridge Ware Box with Sliding Pin-Cushion Lid c1885

Description

Heading : Tunbridge Ware Box with Sliding Pin-Cushion Lid c1885
Date : c1885
Period : Victorian
Origin : Tunbridge Wells. Kent
Decoration : Pin-cushion with dark violet velvet covering; four top edges of the box with banded key-line stringing; two geometric bands (three-square and seven-square) run around all four sides of the box body. including the fitted ‘cover’ of the sliding lid; the tesserae are small and neat
Size :  3.6 x 7.3 x 4.7 cm (height excluding pin-cushion)
Condition : Excellent; the velvet is clean and plush; all the tesserae are intact and the lid fits snuggly when pushed in to place; there’s a tiny nick off the decorated edge of the lid. and a thin 13mm sliver of veneer missing from one top edge of the body
Restoration : none
Weight :  51 grams

Notes : The ubiquitous pin-cushion is a very common element of any notional Tunbridge Ware collection. indicative of the popularity of needlework amongst the demographic of its perceived customer base (gentlefolk who had sufficient spare time to indulge in ‘pass times’ rather than having to graft continually in order to merely subsist); and don’t forget that it was the late Regency love of tapestry that prompted the whole Berlin Wool-work style of mosaic imagery – 19th century England would have been cast in to the deepest and most desolate of funks were it not for a ready supply of pin-cushions !

Consequently. Tunbridge Ware manufacturers turned the things out in huge numbers. with everyone from the Wise family – whilst George III was on the throne – to the Tunbridge Wells Manufacturing Co. Ltd a full 100 years later getting in on the act; this example is perhaps one of the fourth most ‘evolved’ versions. after simple. solid boxes used as inserts in sewing or work boxes. similar fixed examples as stand-alone pieces and then those with lift-off lids. The sheer volume of examples makes identification and dating almost impossible – we can only propound that the lack of wear to the cushion and the coverage of the lacquer suggests a late 19th century provenance. and that the precise nature of the mosaics preclude anything much later. It would seem a reasonable bet that this piece comes from the workshops of Boyce. Brown & Kemp.