Loan offer: pocket portraits

Pressed horn box bearing portrait of Charles I by John Obrisset (1705-1728) © From the collection of the Worshipful Company of Horners

The Museum of Design in Plastics has Esmée Fairbairn Effective Collections funding to lend small groups of artefacts made of horn, a natural plastic. By displaying them in different contexts, it hopes to bring the art and craft of the horner to the attention of people who have not previously considered horn in such a context. So how can horn be relevant to portraiture?

The Museum has a dozen tobacco boxes embellished with portraits representing historical figures including Peter the Great, Charles I, James II, Queen Anne, Shakespeare and Handel (on the same box), and Robert Burns, dating from the early 18th to the early 19th centuries. Several are signed by John Obrisset . You can see them all on the Museum’s website  here. Can you see a role for them in your displays? If so, please get in touch with Susan Lambert (slambert[at]aucb.ac.uk). The Museum will do all or as much of the work as possible, and there are no loan charges.