Every craftsman likes to attribute his name to a work of art or something that he has created. Robert Thompson was a cabinet maker from Kilburn and when he decided to set up in business on his own account he thought long and hard about making his work readily identifiable.
He reckoned that until his business was well established he would be as poor as a church mouse. And that's where his infamous personalised signature originates - he decided to carve a mouse on to all the things he made, and I think certainly adding charm to his pieces, as these napkin rings illustrate. He soon became known as Mouseman.
Talking of mice, another man who personalised his work with a mouse was Terence Cuneo. He painted a lot of trains and car scenes and always worked a little mouse into the picture, and can keep one amused for hours searching sometimes - either scurrying across the road in front of a car or sitting on the tender of a locomotive.
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