Description
ANTIQUE FIGURAL ARTS&CRAFTS ITALIAN CASKET HUNTLEY & PALMERS BISCUIT TIN 1929
A rare Huntley & Palmers lithographed tinplate figural Arts & Crafts/Art Nouveau casket biscuits tin.
Titled “Italian”, hinged lid, impressed advert to gilt panel base.9 ¼” length x 6 ¼” width x 4 1/8” height
Secessionist style ‘Italian Casket’ tin made for the British market by Huntley & Palmers, Reading, England, c. 1929.1936. This popular tin was originally sold with ‘Noel Mixed’ biscuits and is in fact a direct copy (slightly different dimensions) of a Viennese Erhard and Söhne box designed in 1911 by landscape painter and architect Eurgen Nanz (1887-1958), the original in brass and rosewood with briarwood inlay, lined with cedar.
Originally marketed as part of the adult Christmas gift line its intended function was aesthetically classed packaging for oven-fresh afternoon tea biscuits. The main compartment stands on four legs with a domed lid, the body decorated with stylized symmetrical flowers and geometric fretwork in the Austrian manner.
There is one of these tins in the Victoria and Albert museum
