A dressing-table tray from the Edwardian years, the moment the old materials met the new. The body is xylonite, one of the first plastics, made here to stand in for ivory in a cream reeded surface, and set into it is sterling silver by Charles Westwood & Sons of Hall Street, Birmingham, four Art Nouveau whiplash scrolls in the corners and a small beaded cartouche at the centre, left vacant for a monogram that was never engraved.

It has lived, and it wears that honestly. The surface carries the soft spotting and one small scorch that more than a century on a dressing table will leave, and the silver has a gentle tarnish. None of it undoes the charm of the thing, a named piece of Edwardian vanity made in the material that was about to change the century.

25 x 18.5 cm.