Sherlock Holmes Eggs

Ramute had an avid interest in the stories about Sherlock Holmes, written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. She was very active in the South Downers, a Sherlock Holmes society. One of Doyle’s stories was entitled “The Adventure of the Dancing Men” in which coded messages were written using dancing figures. Each distinct figure corresponded to a letter of the alphabet. In these decorated eggs, Ramute applied both the alphabetic and the encoded “Dancing Men” expressions. Or, is it possible that Ramute encoded a different message in the “Dancing Men”?

Some of the “Dancing Men” patterns were issued in limited edition quantities. These decorated eggs were initialled and numbered by Ramute.

Selections of Ramute’s Sherlock Holmes Eggs are also on display at:

Arthur Conan Doyle Collection
Toronto Reference Library
789 Yonge Street
Toronto, Ontario
Canada M4W 2G8
(The two photos at the bottom of this gallery page can be found at the Toronto Reference Library)

Sherlock Holmes Collection
University of Minnesota Library
111 Elmer L. Andersen Library
222 21st Avenue South
Minneapolis, Minnesota 55455

Sherlock Holmes Collection
Portsmouth City Council Museum
Museum Road
Portsmouth, UK PO1 2LJ

 

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