Paperweight

Royal Prussian Iron Foundry, Gleiwitz, Germany

1830-40

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Oval black basalt medallion with relief portrait of John Dryden (1631-1700) facing right. John Dryden was born in Aldwincle near Thrapston in Northamptonshire the eldest of fourteen children. In 1650 Dryden went to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he studied the standard curriculum of classics, rhetoric, and mathematics. He graduated in 1654 with his BA, graduating top of the list for Trinity that year. Dryden returned to London during the Protectorate, where he obtained work with Cromwell's secretary of state, John Thurloe. This later helped him publish his first poem, Heroic Stanzas (1658), a eulogy on Cromwell's death which is cautious and prudent in its emotional display.
Oval medallion of black basalt with bas relief portrait bust of Roman Emperor Tiberius (42 BC-37 AD) facing right, wearing laurel leaf crown, the name TIBERIUS impressed below the truncation, self frame, pierced to hang.
Oval white glass medallion with three-quarter portrait of a unidentified man, in metal mount
Knife handle of solid light blue jasper with white relief decoration in the form of acanthus leaves extending upward from the shank end (broken).