Dark green glass with tooled surface in roped motif. 2 ¾” inside diameter in excellent preservation. If anyone ever lived a charmed life, it was Mary Margaret Motley Sheridan. Daughter of the sculptress and famous beauty, Clare Sheridan, her lineage traces back to James Lathrop Motley, cousin of Winston Churchill. A jet setter before jets, she grew up in English country houses before moving to New York with her mother who stunned the world with her Cossack fashion. Mary went on to lead a life of adventure, exploration and archaeology, recounted in her autobiography, Morning Glory. A stunning beauty like her mother, Mary charmed London society and easily got her way. She developed a fascination with Egyptology at age ten when the tomb of Tutankhamun was opened. At 18, she met E. A. Wallis Budge, then retired as Curator of Egyptian Antiquities to the British Museum and credited with the greatest advances in Egyptian hieroglyphics and language, at a luncheon. “I wonder, I said to our hostess afterwards, I wonder whether he would teach me hieroglyphics. It was an outrageous presumption on my part, an ambition only to be excused by my 18 years.” Not surprisingly, Mary got her wish, no doubt in large part owing to her appeal to Budge who was 73 at the time. Six pages of her autobiography are devoted to her experiences with Budge. For two years, mornings were spent at Budge's flat near the British Museum working one on one with Budge, translating Egyptian text into work books. Four books spanning 1931-32 were produced. We sold those books with Mary’s original pen, in 2016. Mary Margaret Motley Sheridan’s Roman bracelet, probably given to her by Sir Wallace Budge.
