Sunday best or bound for China?
Commentary
Sunday best or bound for China?
Accession number:
Buchanan e.111
Collection:
Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford
Intricately gold-tooled, and with a silver catch, this luxurious box matches the exquisitely bound Book of Common Prayer printed in 1748 which it contains. The book’s endleaves have been used to record generations of the Blanshard family. Although one might imagine the book being proudly used in a quiet country church, its first owner, Captain John Atkinson Blanshard, inscribed the name of his East India Company ship the York on its title-page before sailing to India and China.
Dimensions
Box: 176 x 113 x 39 mm
Book: 170 x 106 x 32 mm
Weight
Box and book: 456 g
Box: 78 g
From the collection of T.R. Buchanan; donated by his widow, 1941