Hans Sloane, the British Museum, and an Asbestos Purse – Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture – Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture
There is an object in the British Museum that was bought from Benjamin Franklin. A small asbestos “purse.” With only these details, the modern mind imagines the elder statesman ambling up to Montague House, the museum’s home in Bloomsbury from 1759, on the same site as the modern museum. Perhaps the most well known American in the world, the Franklin in our imagination gains entry to the museum and marvels at the collections before offering up a curiosity of his own. In reality, it was a much younger Franklin who was invited to the home of Sir Hans Sloane in 1725 – almost thirty years before George II gave his Royal Assent to establish a public museum founded in large part on Sloane’s collections.
