Wide Sweetheart Engraved 'MS' Wooden Busk

A carved wooden busk, with engraved motifs of a heart, foliage, geometric patterns and the initials ‘MS’.

Early busks were often made of wood, bone or baleen and would be inserted into the centre of stays or corsets to help support the garment and shape the body. Busks could be plain and utilitarian, or elaborately carved and painted, with the latter occasionally exchanged as a love token.

From the collection of Karolina Laskowska