| Description | Handmade box with attached lid. Made with card overlain with clear X-ray film, sewn together with red [nylon]. Decorated with cartoon figures, mostly animals, cut out from greetings cards. Composed of four circular compartments, two larger in the centre with smaller ones at either end. Lid has a tassel at the centre and joins the box via two stitched hinges and a short length of cord of the same red material. One of several items made by Helen O'Brien in the 1950s while being treated for miliary tuberculosis in Saint Patrick's Sanatorium, Castlerea, Co. Roscommon and Newcastle Sanatorium, Co. Wicklow. At the time, Dr. Noel Browne (1915-1997) worked in the latter and art classes, taught by Yann Renard-Goulet (1914-1999), were arranged for the patients there. Other objects made by Helen during this period are also held in the RCPI collections (ref. no. HI/2023-9/1 to HI/2023-9/7). |