Atlas of the British Empire
A miniature atlas bound for Neale Albert of New York. The binding is goatskin and has been decorated with an onlaid map of the world, the British Empire in pink. The book has been enclosed in a globe made with silver hinge and catch which has again been inlaid and onlaid with a world map and tooled with the lines of longitude and the oceans currents. This has then been enclosed in a rosewood box again with hand made fittings. The turned interior of the box is tooled with the constellations on...
Read MoreBlessed are the Peacemakers
Heart box made and presented to Dr. Mo Mowlem, the then Northern Ireland Secretary in the British Government. She had worked tirelessly and with persistence and good humour for peace in Northen Ireland and with US President Bill Clinton and others oversaw the talks leading to the Good Friday Agreement of 1998. The inlaid shamrock decoration on the lid has been based on the earlier bindings produced for the Royal Ulster Constabulary Books of Remembrance. The sides of the box contain the quotation ‘Blessed are the peacemankers‘. Mo Mowlem died in August 2005. Below further examples of heart-shaped boxes including an engagement ring...
Read MoreKaleidoscopes
A selection of kaleidoscopes bound with inlaid and tooled leather. These kaleidoscopes do not contain loose elements for pattern-making but instead a lens and prism make patterns from one’s surroundings. The kaleidoscope was invented by Professor Sir David Brewster in 1816 at St Andrew’s University, Fife. Four views of a kaleidoscope. This kaleidoscope was made for the first exhibition of the opening of the former home of William Blake as a small museum. Each contributor was asked to design and make something which in some way reflected Blake either visually or in the use of his words. Bound in goatskins and calfskins with some modelling in three dimensions. Two kaleidoscopes decorated by representations of electron microscope images produced during several years spent working at the Natural History Museum. Bound in goatskins and alum tawed goatskin. A further collection of kaleidoscopes. One bound to commission for a Swiss antiques dealer was a group gift to one of their partners bearing the nickname ‘hot lizard’ hence the imagery of lizards – one is seen crawling out of the flames. Two were commissioned as Christmas gifts for the grand-children of Neale Albert, another for an artist in New York who specialises in figurative painting and yet another commissioned for Neale Albert secretly for his wife. It represents his miniature book...
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