Victorian Tunbridge Ware walnut keepsake box inlaid with marquetry and lined with silk
Beautiful Victorian Tunbridge Ware keepsake / lady's workbox inlaid with intricate geometric bands that include a rhombus design. The body of the box is veneered with walnut and the marquetry is done with boxwood, kingwood, mahogany, and satinwood among others. The hinged domed lid has a vacant hexagonal cartouche that is edged with cross-banded fruitwood and ebony; the same design is repeated around the key escutcheon.
The interior of the lid is line with ruched blue silk; this ruched panel is softly padded and can be used to hold decorative pins and brooches.
Made in England, c. 1870's
682 g
12 cm tall
22 cm wide
15 cm deep
Good antique condition. Surface cracks appropriate to age; small losses and chips to veneer, wear to fabric on base; minor tears to silk lining; internal crack on base.
Beautiful Victorian Tunbridge Ware keepsake / lady's workbox inlaid with intricate geometric bands that include a rhombus design. The body of the box is veneered with walnut and the marquetry is done with boxwood, kingwood, mahogany, and satinwood among others. The hinged domed lid has a vacant hexagonal cartouche that is edged with cross-banded fruitwood and ebony; the same design is repeated around the key escutcheon.
The interior of the lid is line with ruched blue silk; this ruched panel is softly padded and can be used to hold decorative pins and brooches.
Made in England, c. 1870's
682 g
12 cm tall
22 cm wide
15 cm deep
Good antique condition. Surface cracks appropriate to age; small losses and chips to veneer, wear to fabric on base; minor tears to silk lining; internal crack on base.
Beautiful Victorian Tunbridge Ware keepsake / lady's workbox inlaid with intricate geometric bands that include a rhombus design. The body of the box is veneered with walnut and the marquetry is done with boxwood, kingwood, mahogany, and satinwood among others. The hinged domed lid has a vacant hexagonal cartouche that is edged with cross-banded fruitwood and ebony; the same design is repeated around the key escutcheon.
The interior of the lid is line with ruched blue silk; this ruched panel is softly padded and can be used to hold decorative pins and brooches.
Made in England, c. 1870's
682 g
12 cm tall
22 cm wide
15 cm deep
Good antique condition. Surface cracks appropriate to age; small losses and chips to veneer, wear to fabric on base; minor tears to silk lining; internal crack on base.
Tunbridge ware is a form of decoratively inlaid woodwork, that is characteristic of Tonbridge and the spa town of Royal Tunbridge Wells in Kent in the 18th and 19th centuries. The decoration typically consists of a mosaic of many very small pieces of different coloured woods that form a pictorial vignette. Shaped rods and slivers of wood were first carefully glued together, then cut into many thin slices of identical pictorial veneer with a fine saw. Elaborately striped and feathered bandings for framing were pre-formed in a similar fashion. Many sorts of wood were employed for the various colours; about 40 were in regular use and only natural colours were used.
In the nineteenth century, Tunbridge ware was highly esteemed nationally as well as locally. The young Princess Victoria, a frequent visitor to the town with her mother the Duchess of Kent, used to buy articles of Tunbridge ware as gifts for her family. Today, these beautiful pieces can only be purchased in antique shops, as none have been made on a commercial basis since 1939.
