Open a new Advent Calendar door every day to reveal a new Ashmolean object every day until 25 December
The Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. Advent calendar. That is all.
Day one:
FUN FACT: Elias Ashmole was an aspirational sugar baby: "In 1646–47, Ashmole made several simultaneous approaches to rich widows in the hope of securing a good marriage." (per Wikipedia)
And it worked: "In 1649, he married Mary, Lady Mainwaring (daughter of Sir William Forster of Aldermaston), a wealthy thrice-widowed woman twenty years his senior; she may have been a relative by marriage of his first wife's family and was the mother of grown children. The marriage took place despite the opposition of the bride's family, and it did not prove to be harmonious: Lady Mainwaring filed suit for separation and alimony but it was dismissed by the courts in 1657. Nevertheless, the marriage provided Ashmole with Mary's first husband's estates centred on Bradfield in Berkshire which left him wealthy enough to pursue his interests, including botany and alchemy, without concern for having to earn a living." (ibid)
