Details
GOLD PRESENTATION BOX
Of rectangular outline in 18K matte-finished gold, the repoussé lid designed as a facsimile of a First World War Christmas presentation box by Queen Mary to front-line troops--gross weight 8.84 oz., 5 1/8 x 3 3/8 x 1 1/8 in.
Signed by Webb
The practice of giving christmas gifts to soldiers during wartime originated with Queen Victoria who sent boxes of chocolate to soldiers in 1900 during the Boer War. At the beginning of World War I, Princess Mary, continued this custom by sending lacquered brass boxes to soldiers on active duty on Christmas day, 1914. She solicited private funds for this project and was overwhelmed by puplic response. Two individual boxes were assembled, one for smokers and one for nonsmokers. Both boxes contained a Christmas card and a photograph of Princess Mary who was only seventeen at the time. Smoker's boxes were filled with twenty cigarettes and one once of pipe tobacco while the nonsmoker box contained a package of writing paper in a wallet (smokers' boxes outnumbered nonsmokers' by fifty four to two). Nurses were also included but without the choice: proper ladies did not smoke at that time. In thanks for princess Mary's part in this generous act of fellowship, the committee who actually organized the project presented the princess with a silver gilt replica. This gold box is an exact duplicate, made by David Webb in the 1960s. (Information provided by Condell, curator at the Imperial War Museum in London.)
Of rectangular outline in 18K matte-finished gold, the repoussé lid designed as a facsimile of a First World War Christmas presentation box by Queen Mary to front-line troops--gross weight 8.84 oz., 5 1/8 x 3 3/8 x 1 1/8 in.
Signed by Webb
The practice of giving christmas gifts to soldiers during wartime originated with Queen Victoria who sent boxes of chocolate to soldiers in 1900 during the Boer War. At the beginning of World War I, Princess Mary, continued this custom by sending lacquered brass boxes to soldiers on active duty on Christmas day, 1914. She solicited private funds for this project and was overwhelmed by puplic response. Two individual boxes were assembled, one for smokers and one for nonsmokers. Both boxes contained a Christmas card and a photograph of Princess Mary who was only seventeen at the time. Smoker's boxes were filled with twenty cigarettes and one once of pipe tobacco while the nonsmoker box contained a package of writing paper in a wallet (smokers' boxes outnumbered nonsmokers' by fifty four to two). Nurses were also included but without the choice: proper ladies did not smoke at that time. In thanks for princess Mary's part in this generous act of fellowship, the committee who actually organized the project presented the princess with a silver gilt replica. This gold box is an exact duplicate, made by David Webb in the 1960s. (Information provided by Condell, curator at the Imperial War Museum in London.)