An apparently unprepossessing artefact from the Cowper & Newton Museum, a straw work box, was recently taken to a filming of BBC’s Antiques Roadshow at Wrest Park, writes Fran Parry.
It’s connection to John Newton increased its potential value considerably. The box is a thing of some beauty and tells a fascinating tale about the later Georgian period.
We know a little about the artisan who made the box and how Newton probably came by it.
Many French prisoners were held in England at the height of the Napoleonic wars in traditional prisons and on prison “hulks”.
Newton was an avid prison visitor and it is likely he bought the box at one of the London prisons that he visited while evangelising or during a visit to the hulks at Portsmouth and Southampton.
Or maybe it came from the prison of war camp at Norman Cross near Peterborough. Prisoners were encouraged to occupy themselves, and earn some money to supplement rations, by producing saleable items.
Creating straw marquetry was one such occupation using readily available tools and materials including scrap metals, animal bone glue and salvaged straw.
The maker used simple construction methods, cutting and gluing the straw that covered the box, but it is intricately made, begging the question whether our Frenchman brought the skill with him or learnt it in prison.
In its day our box was an eye-catching, colourful, piece with every surface (inside and out) made up of a large assortment of geometric patterns, using a method akin to marquetry, a popular European woodworking technique.
The box has several compartments and may have been used for trinkets or for gaming cards and dice. It has clearly been well-used and loved and brings us closer to the man, hundreds of miles from home in a foreign land whiling his time away creating this lovely piece, and to John Newton, who’s eye was caught by it.
The Cowper & Newton Museum is on Olney Market Place.
Never miss news or leisure info in Milton Keynes - Follow us on www.twitter.com/thisistotalmk
And on Facebook: www.facebook.com/thisistotalmk
