Images(2)

Sewing Box and Accessories

DatePossibly 1805-1840, with later (1840-1860) additions of cloth scraps on top.

MediumCardboard, various cottons, paper, silk, wool, printed wallpaper, tinplate, iron, glue and thread

DimensionsOH. of box: 2 1/2" (6.3 cm.); diam. of lid of box: 4 1/4" (10.8 cm.); diam. of 6-pointed compass star quilting pattern: 3 3/4" (9.5 cm.); tip-to-tip of 5-pointed star: 3 1/8" (7.9 cm.)

Credit LineGift of Mrs. Thom Sears.

Object number1981.610.1

DescriptionThis is a circular pasteboard box covered with fabric scraps and lined with bock-printed wallpaper scraps. The predominant fabric covering is a dark blue cotton with a narrow double cream stripe in it; scraps of other fabrics cut in small triangles are glued to the top of the lid in a decorative pattern. Accessories accompnaying the box include a silk-covered needle case with wool "pages" and a front pocket enclosing a paper manufacturer's packet wrapped around a single needle; and two different tinplate plushwork patterns, one a 5-pointed star and the other a 6-pointed compass.
In pencil in script on the underside of the lid is "Abbie L/Bakus [?]/presented [?]/Aunt L ... [illeg.]." Remnants of paper printed with words appear on the underside of the lid; most of the printing is illegible or too fragmented to form a meaningful transcription, but legible partial phrasing reads: ... dain,/ to restrain;/ ... ow'ry ro ..."
A needle packet in the needlecase bears a printed manufacturer's label reading "H. BAYLIS' / VICTORIA / Drilled-End / BETWEENS / 3 to 9 / WARRANTED."
Printed paper pasted over the exterior bottom of the box appears to be part of a newspaper or magazine masthead: legible sections read "NEWHAM . . . / Or, The Farm / "Where Liberty is, there is my Country." -- Fr . . . / L. I.] WALPOL . . . Miscellanies./ . . . achusetts Spy, &c. / . . . BOUR. / which I have paid part . . . / have journeyed many / harvest, and dressing / of every particula . . . / agement in / tries."
Label TextIt appears that the small cloth scraps glued to the lid of this work box were added sometime after the box itself was fabricated. A subsequent owner may have done this in an effort to “update" the box in keeping with the mid-nineteenth-century craze for patchwork.
A needlecase and two tinplate plushwork patterns in the shape of a star and flower accompany the box. Raised sculptured plush work was popular in the late Victorian era. Pincushions were often decorated in this method, which involved wrapping wool yarn over a tin pattern and through a ground fabric. The yarn was cut down on top of the center of the pattern, releasing the tin pattern and resulting in rows of yarn in a star or flower design.
InscribedRemnants of paper printed with words appear on the underside of the lid; most of the printing is illegible or too fragmented to form a meaningful transcription, but legible partial phrasing reads: ... dain,/ to restrain;/ ... ow'ry ro ..."
MarkingsA needle packet in the needlecase bears a printed manufacturer's label reading "H. BAYLIS' / VICTORIA / Drilled-End / BETWEENS / 3 to 9 / WARRANTED."
Printed paper pasted over the exterior bottom of the box appears to be part of a newspaper or magazine masthead: legible sections read "NEWHAM . . . / Or, The Farm / "Where Liberty is, there is my Country." -- Fr . . . / L. I.] WALPOL . . . Miscellanies./ . . . achusetts Spy, &c. / . . . BOUR. / which I have paid part . . . / have journeyed many / harvest, and dressing / of every particula . . . / agement in / tries."
ProvenanceOwnership prior to AARFAC's donor is unknown.
The following is per conversation with Charles Driscoll 1/4/91: The donor's maiden name was Ann Devlin (?) Driscoll. She died in 1988. She was the aunt of Charles Driscoll of Williamsburg, Va. (a current CWF employee); she was Charles's father's sister. According to Charles, Ann lived in New York City during WWII, and then moved with her husband, Thom Sears, to Rumson, NJ, where the two of them ran an antiques shop called "A. & T. Sears' Country Store." According to Charles, much of the Searses' shop inventory was acquired in Pennsylvania; Charles surmises this box may have been one such item. (However, identification of the newspaper glued to the bottom as having been printed in Walpole, NH, suggests that the box was originally made in New England). In the 1970s the Searses moved to CA; Mrs. Sears subsequently sold a number of textiles to the LA Co. Museum. See file Xeroxes from Clarence S. Brigham, HISTORY AND BIBLIOGRAPHY OF AMERICAN NEWSPAPERS, 1690-1820, I (Worcester, Mass.: American Antiquarian Society), pp. 415-418 and, especially, p. 489, the latter clearly identifying the newspaper found on the bottom of this box as having come from a weekly published in Walpole, NH, only during the years 1793-1797.