Sir Henry Irving bells

These bells were used by Sir Henry Irving in the play "The Bells" (1871), a translation and adaptation by Leopold Davis Lewis of the "Le Juif Polonais" (The Polish Jew, 1867) by Erckmann-Chatrian. This is a play about a man haunted by a murder he has committed, where only he (and the audience) can hear the bells jingling on the ghostly Jew's sledge. It consists of a set of five small spherical bells of copper alloy attached to a piece of thick copper alloy wire twisted round to form a circle. The set would probably be used as a bracelet or anklet.