Group of plastic table ornaments, 1920s-1930s.

The acrylic objects include a pink table lighter, a powder compact, a photograph holder, candlesticks and a green bon-bon tray and two pepper pots in a stepped Art Deco design. These objects are asociated with the John Jese and Roger Newport collections purchased by the Science Museum, London. Polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA), known either as acrylic or by the trade name 'Perspex' or 'Plexiglas', was introduced just before World War II. Its transparency made it immediately useful for aircraft glazing in, for example, the cockpit canopy of the Spitfire.