An Ernestine Mills’ enamel plaque set in a Rowley Gallery wooden box

For sale is this rare Rowley Gallery gilded wooden box, set with an Ernestine Mills’ signed enamel plaque.  The enamel is of a yellow flower, I believe a wild rose, and quite probably of suffragette significance.  The yellow rose was an emblem of women’s suffrage, especially in the United States.  Signed with her EM monogram.

The box is by the Rowley Gallery, famed for their marquetry wooden plaques.  Irene Cockroft writes in her book on Mills “New Dawn Women” that “Mills commissioned the Rowley Gallery of Kensington to provide gilded wood boxes and bookends that she embellished with enamel inserts”.  Condition of the enamel is excellent, with no restoration or damage.  The box is also in very good condition, structurally sound, with just some loss of the exterior gilding.

Ernestine Mills was a suffragette, enameller and metalworker.  You can read more about her at her wiki page here.

Price: Sold

Maker: Ernestine Mills

Designer: Ernestine Mills

Date : c 1910

Marks: EM

Material: Enamel on copper, wood

Condition: Excellent. See description

Size: 9.5 cm max diameter, 2.5 cm height

Weight : NM