What: A brass processional cross bought for £3 from Major Holland

Where: The Victoria & Albert Museum, Cromwell Rd, Knightsbridge, London SW7 2RL

The catalogue entry reads: “Processional cross. Brass, quatrefoil centre surrounded with openwork circle of crosses, with socket. Abyssinian. Price £3.0.0. Purchased from Major Holland. Date of receipt from stores 26th April 1869…

“The vendor may have been Major Trevenen James Holland who, with a military colleague, Sir Henry Montague Hozier, provided the only official account of the expedition on the orders of the Secretary of State for War. Their Record of the Expedition to Abyssinia was published in two volumes in 1870.”

Museum number:
1732-1869