The kitchen
Biscuit tin with roses
Held buttons, then receipts, then nothing at all.
- Made by
- Unknown tin printer
- Date
- About 1950
- Material
- Printed tinplate
- Size
- 19 cm square
- Cost new
- Came full of biscuits
- Came from
- Dorothy Merrin’s house, 2009
On view The kitchen, in the second drawer. Ground floor.
Every house had one. The roses have worn off the corners where it was lifted out of a drawer thousands of times. When it reached us it held fourteen bus tickets from 1968, a key that fits nothing in the house and a single tooth wrapped in paper.
We kept the contents together, in the archive, because a tin is only half an object without what someone decided to keep in it.
More from the kitchen.
Copper jam pan
Unknown coppersmith, about 1890The kitchen, on the rangeCost new: eleven shillings
Flat iron
Unknown foundry, about 1900The kitchen, by the rangeCost new: ninepence
Water jug, blue rim
Unknown enamel works, probably Wolverhampton, about 1925The kitchen, on the dresserCost new: one and threepence
Where to see it
The kitchen, ground floor.
You’ll find it in the second drawer. The kitchen is on the ground floor; the lift is by the front desk.
Open Wednesday to Sunday, 10:00 to 17:00, and until 20:00 on Thursdays.