A MUSEUM is a depository of precious objects. Amersham Museum’s collection was started because residents had held on to things which they believed were of particular significance to the history of the town.

But we all have our own special object - something that is particularly important to us and which we would grab first if our house was on fire, or we had to flee.

This could be an heirloom, or a sentimental item of little value to anyone else. Each object tells its own story, and this is the theme of the current exhibition in the Marie-Louise von Motesiczky Gallery - ‘Precious Objects’ at Amersham Museum.

Marie-Louise’s sheep

The exhibition was inspired by the two enamelled sheep ornaments that émigré artist Marie-Louise von Motesiczky brought with her when she left Vienna, following the annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany. The sheep are surprisingly heavy and are not particularly valuable or attractive.

However, they must have been very important to both Marie-Louise and her mother Henriette, as these weighty objects took up valuable space in their luggage.

Whilst staying in Amsterdam in 1938, Marie-Louise included the ornaments in one of her autobiographical still life paintings Still Life with Sheep. Jill Lloyd, in her biography of the artist, The Undiscovered Expressionist, wrote: “In the anonymous hotel bedroom, Marie-Louise placed these precious, familiar objects next to grapefruits, black grapes, and yellow flowers on top of an ironing board decked with a white cloth, which Marie-Louise described as ‘the most convenient surface available’. She remembered that the still life took about three weeks to complete, its motivation being the desire ‘to paint something beautiful … to paint and dream’ and presumably to escape from the stressful reality of her situation”.

The exhibition

Including Marie-Louise’s sheep, lent by Tate, there are 26 ‘precious objects’ in the exhibition. Members of Amersham Museum Singing Group, visitors and other local residents, including Sarah Green MP and Amersham Mayor Dominic Pinkney, have each lent the museum their precious object and shared its story. Here are some of those stories:

Teddy

Sue Whiting has lent her precious childhood companion, a teddy and explained why he is so important to her: “There was a toy shop in Great Missenden called Spittle’s run by two sisters. In the 1940s when I was a child, the shop was a beacon, a place we would gather round to look in the window. There were few toys being made directly after the war. In 1946 I saw three teddies in the window, I had never really seen one before.

I told my grandmother about them. When I went the next time the middle bear - the one I really liked - was gone. My grandmother told me some lucky girl or boy would receive it for Christmas. And then on Christmas Day, in my grandmother’s house, there was teddy, sitting on the sofa, for me!

He is precious because so few bears were made after the war, as well as being precious to me. People will remember Spittle’s, it was a special shop”.

Bubbles - Lera’s Fluffy Toy

Murray Stewart has lent Bubbles, a fluffy toy which he describes as follows: “one of the most hideous-looking creatures I have ever seen. This beastly thing is masquerading as a child-friendly soft toy, a mass-produced ball of white fluff, wearing grotesque sunglasses that even Elton John would baulk at. On its chest is a little sign which says in English: ‘I love you’”.

The toy was given to Murray by a seven-year-old Ukrainian refugee, Lera. Murray had volunteered to drive a rented minibus from a humanitarian aid centre on the Ukrainian border, to a hostel 30 miles away in Poland. His passengers were five women, two young boys, a little girl, and a translator. There was also a “huge ragtail heap of bags”.

Murray was informed that the little girl, Lera, had taken a liking to him and wanted him to have her toy. Murray, understandably, tried to refuse but: “’If you try to give it back to her, she will be offended and she will cry’ said the translator, in that brutal down-to-earth, brooks-no-argument, Eastern European kind of way. That settles it. ‘No child-tears on my watch’ is one of my unwritten rules. So, I accept the gift graciously and we set off through the by-now familiar Polish countryside.

Yes, it may be hideous looking, but the sentiment behind the giving of the fluffy monstrosity is most certainly not, which means it will likely be treasured forever”.

Family photos in a keepsake box

David Curry has lent some family photos in their box which are particularly precious to him: “My father Charles Curry was born in Yorkshire in 1903 and moved south in 1929 when he qualified from Leeds University and was unable to get employment.

When my father’s sister Nellie died in 1989 (aged 85) my wife Phyl and I cleared out her house and possessions. Amongst the books on her bookcase, we discovered this unusual box containing this amazing collection of family photographs. The images feature my grandparents, Fred and Mary Curry, their parents, siblings and children.

My grandfather Fred was born in 1877 in Hitchen in Hertfordshire. He worked as an apprentice signalman for the London and North Eastern Railway Company.

He was promoted to a signal box in Ardsley, Yorkshire around 1897.

The signal box was on a junction of the main line between Scotland and Kings Cross in London. It served the area known as the ‘the rhubarb triangle’, which daily supplied the fruit markets of London”.

Inspired by Marie-Louise’s experiences and her home in Amersham, artist Elaine Duigenan has designed the exhibition, working with the museum’s Art Club and pupils at Our Lady’s School to create artworks which explore what make objects valuable to us. Visit the museum to discover more, Wednesday to Sunday, 12noon to 4:30pm.