3-052-366 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Casket presented to Mr. Gladstone on his birthday, 1880. '...casket, manufactured by Messrs. Hunt and Roskell, for the address of congratulation presented to [British Prime Minister] the Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone, M.P., on his seventieth birthday. The front panel contains a medallion portrait of Mr. Gladstone, surrounded by a wreath of laurel, accompanied by the lictor's fasces, legal scrolls, and broken fetters, emblematic of government, administration, legislation, and liberty. Opposite these are the woodman's axe, the volume of Homer, and the porcelain vase...Winged figures above the medallion support a ribbon with the motto "Many happy returns of the day."...The semicircular ends of the box are each divided into two panels by a "Liver," the mythical bird which is the device of the city of Liverpool...The cover is surmounted by a figure of Literature, with bust of Homer, lamp, and books. The ornamental borders are a conventional treatment of the cotton-plant. The casket, designed and modelled by Mr. Swaffield Brown, was presented by the Liberal Association of Liverpool'. From "Illustrated London News", 1880.