Signet Matrix: Seal Matrix featuring Head of Queen Victoria in her youth

An oval seal matrix of amber-coloured glass, with a design of the head of the young Queen Victoria, with radiate crown above. This matrix may have been created in 1837 to commemorate Victoria’s accession to the throne.

Seal matrices also known as signet matrices were used to impress their owner’s mark into wax on documents during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Many were made of moulded translucent glass. Little is known of their manufacture. They seem to have been produced for personal rather than commercial use. Birmingham Museums & Art Gallery acquired a collection of twenty-seven seal matrices in 1934. This is one of the items.