Kettledrum

This instrument was purchased by a Mrs. Norman Hill after the Taiping Rebellion (1850-1864), and she presented it to Sir Merton Russell-Cotes on 1/3/1917. It is a small kettledrum with an upside-down, bell shaped shell of copper alloy (probably bronze), having an animal skin membrane stretched through metal pegs of the same alloy. The unusual shape of the drum and the existence of eyelets around the rim and at the bottom suggest that this drum would have been suspended with cord on a stand.