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24 Feb 2018

Part II: 50 interesting objects

A very elaborate and ornate dressing case, filled with ceramic pots and gilt slim cases. Many of the lids are encrusted with red jewels.
Lady Kennedy’s dressing case
There are many intriguing and eye-catching artefacts in our collections.

1. Bridal cupboard

Featured Place: Culross
A tall, dark wooden cabinet with spindle legs. The doors are adorned with carvings of trolls, and carvings of horses run along the bottom of the cabinet.
A bridal cupboard adorned with trolls, which symbolise a happy marriage

2. Walnut escritoire

Featured Place: Culross
A polished walnut writing desk, opened out to reveal lots of drawers and storage slots inside. The desk has a felted inlay. It has six spindle legs.
A beautiful walnut escritoire (with plenty of hiding places)

3. Watercolour

A watercolour of a man sitting at a large weaving loom. The artist signature is in the bottom right corner. It is framed by a wide gilt frame.
An 1899 watercolour of a weaver by Edinburgh artist Hannah MacGoun

4. Cabinet

Featured Place: Culzean Castle
A polished wooden cabinet with six spindle legs. The doors have a heart marquetry pattern, with two metal locks. A stone bust sits on top of the cabinet.
The ‘Douglas Heart Cabinet’, which pre-dates Robert Adam’s work at Culzean Castle

5. Dressing case

Featured Place: Culzean Castle
A very elaborate and ornate dressing case, filled with ceramic pots and gilt slim cases. Many of the lids are encrusted with red jewels.
A Victorian ‘toilet service’ containing combs, mirrors and even a whistle

6. Wooden sticks

Featured Place: Culzean Castle
A thin wooden block with white swirling patterns carved on top.
Two neatly decorated wooden sticks (but no-one knows what they were for)

7. Middle Eastern brass bowls

Two brass bowls with elaborate engraved motifs are displayed side by side.
Elaborate Middle Eastern brass bowls with engraved motifs

9. Boat-shaped cradle

A highly polished wooden cradle, shaped like a small boat, rests on a stand.
A boat-shaped wooden cradle, symbolic of the Kennedys’ shipbuilding heritage

10. Chamber pot

Featured Place: Culross
A pewter chamber pot with a handle to the right.
A pewter chamber pot, made around 1794 by William Scott and Hammermen Inc

11. Violin

Featured Place: Robert Burns Birthplace Museum
A fiddle is displayed face on, with the pegs at the top. The body is beautifully carved with floral images and decorative swirls.
A fiddle used by Burns’s dance teacher, William Gregg

What we do: Collections

Find out more about how we care for the very wide range of collections items in over 50 of our properties.

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Read next

Part I: 50 interesting objects

Explore part I of our 50 interesting objects.

Part III: 50 interesting objects

Explore Part III of our 50 interesting objects.

Part IV: 50 interesting objects

Explore Part IV of our 50 interesting objects.

Part V: 50 interesting objects

Explore Part V of our 50 interesting objects.

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