Two very beautiful and special buttons. On the reverse are cast the cursive initials J.M. The stained, cotton thread, interspersed with more exquisite beads, is also still attached and will be used for some purpose. I usually make necklaces...but I am thinking these buttons would also make a beautiful pair of earrings. I love the strength and size of them. They are about 14mm in diameter. They would need a suitably strong, narrative subject.

In 1798, Mary Wollstonecraft wrote her most radical feminist work; 'Maria; or the Wrongs of Woman'. It tells the story of a woman wrongly imprisoned. Female friendships are always key to Mary's work, but it is the friendship between Maria and Jemima (J.& M.) the servant charged with watching over her, that becomes historically significant. Based on a bond of motherhood between an upper-class woman and a lower-class woman, it is one of the first moments in feminist literature that touches on a cross-class argument; women of different economic positions have the same interests...just because they are women.

I am considering a pair of earrings based on Maria and Jemima, two friends.