Victorian Sterling Silver Snuff Box with Intriguing Inscription, 1846
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Interesting Victorian sterling silver snuff box, hallmarked Birmingham, 1846, W&Et (William & Edward Turnpenny), of rectangular form, decorated with acanthus and floral motifs on an engine turned ground, opening to a gilt interior with inscription reading 'Presented//by the relatives of a dear sister to//Dr. Pritchard//as a slight testimony of their gratitude for his// unremitting kindness and attention to her//Augt. 27th. 1846,' total weight 99gm, 8.5 cm x 3.5 cm catalogue note: possibly a graduation gift for Dr Edward William Pritchard (6 December 1825-28 July 1865). An English doctor who was convicted of murdering his wife and mother-in-law by poisoning them. He was also suspected of murdering a servant girl, but was never tried for this crime and was the last person to be publicly executed in Glasgow. He claimed to have studied at King's College Hospital in London and to have graduated from there in 1846. Provenance: collection of the late Fredric Sinfield, Sydney NSW, 1938 - 2008
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- Engine Turned - Engine turning is a decorative technique used on metal surfaces to create intricate curving or geometric pattern. The process involves cutting a series of lines into the surface of the metal using a rose engine or decoration lathe which rotates the metal as it cuts, allowing the operator to create a repeating pattern that covers the entire surface. The resulting surface has a shimmering, reflective quality that is often described as "engine turned." Where an engine turned item has been enamelled, the term used to describe the decoration is usually guilloche.
Engine turning was originally developed to decorate metal objects such as firearms, scientific instruments, and other metal objects that required precise and elegant design. - Sterling Silver - Sterling silver is a mixture of 92.5% pure silver and 7.5% of another metal, usually copper. Fine silver is 99.9% pure silver, and is relatively soft and the addition of the very small amount of copper gives the metal enough strength and hardness to be worked into jewellery, decorative and household objects.
- Victorian Period - The Victorian period of furniture and decorative arts design covers the reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1901. There was not one dominant style of furniture in the Victorian period. Designers used and modified many historical styles such as Gothic, Tudor, Elizabethan, English Rococo, Neoclassical and others, although use of some styles, such as English Rococo and Gothic tended to dominate the furniture manufacture of the period.
The Victorian period was preceded by the Regency and William IV periods, and followed by the Edwardian period, named for Edward VII (1841 ? 1910) who was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions and Emperor of India for the brief period from 1901 until his death in 1910. - Acanthus - A stylized leaf motif, one of the primary decorative elements of classical Greek and Roman architecture, derived from the genus of flowering plants in the family Acanthaceae, native to tropical and subtropical regions of the Mediterranean area. It is a common element in classical Greek and Roman design, and is often seen in Corinthian and Composite order columns and used as a decorative element in English, European and Australian furniture, particularly on the curve of a leg, and as decoration for a corbel.
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