Featured Looking for information. Carved wooden chest/box

Now that's a spoon rack! Generally they're worth less than the spoons, but ... dang.

 

Yeah, i hear you! It was in a museum, i forget where, it did have a dutch family provenance but what it REALLY had going for it was, YELLOW POPLAR! which means, it was ABSOLUTELY POSITIVELY american because that wood is native to america but NOT europe!
Therefore, it is deemed american "folk art" and GET OUT YOUR POCKETBOOK!

 

Yeah, a sad chapter there, no doubt, almost as bad as Charles the Welshman!
I won't mention the hussy's name either but she did run off with another!

There was a box at Skinner last month that i was sorta looking at, 3-5k estimate, early 18th century, american, later paint. sold for almost $7000. USD
These early boxes i say, it's a CONSPIRACY! to keep dad from getting one, an American one!

 

To add insult to injury, there is a Robert Crosman box coming up for sale later this month. You know, the Taunton Mass. guy who built/painted that 1729 chest of drawers that holds the american record for a painted piece, 3 million USD.
I'll do a seperate thread/post/photo on this Crosman box but i can already tell you & anyone that's interested, this Crosman box is going to be hideously expensive,
GET OUT YOUR POCKETBOOK!

 

And the hussy whose name won't be mentioned was in on it!

 

Probably! And even though i have NO CHANCE on this crosman box coming up, i am still planning/calculating...... what's my budget, what's the condition, what's the competition likely to be, etc.
Lightning could strike, right?

 

This small box that he built has 2 birds painted on the front, the condition is not great though, still, unmistakable as Crosman. Here is a video of his record setting chest of drawers a few years ago.

https://www.christies.com/features/Wishlist_John_ChestofDrawers-5647-3.aspx

 

My two little Frisians have arrived. Lovely, but dry as a bone, and the felt with which the coffee spoon box is lined stinks to high heaven, so tlc treatment has started on both of them.
The felt is in good condition otherwise, but I am contemplating taking it out as it isn't original. On the other hand, these boxes have led a life, and the old felt could be seen as a testimony of that.....
After a touch of oil they are now much darker than in the seller's pics. The coffee spoon box was once darkened, which still shows on the lid and in the carving on the sides.

 

Pitch the felt, i liked the coffee spoon box better, was more "frisian" looking & seemed older than the other one.


Meanwhile, back at the ranch, i figured out how to edit/crop and isolate a single object from a whole page of MAD online (no preview or anything else is available on this box yet)........
So here it is, the box that i am absolutely positively not going to get anywhere close to unless lighting strikes or there is some divine intervention

 

Yes, it is the older and more traditional of the two. The other one is ca 1900 imo, with that Art Nouveau design on the lid.
The coffee spoon box as it is now, after a drop of oil:



This was before:

 

Great box, absolutely love the birds, James. Hoping for divine intervention.

 

Yeah, that works! The bad news is, i can't torment about not owning any Frisian artifacts!

 

Yeah, as soon as i saw the birds it screamed ROBERT CROSMAN! i enlarged other parts of the box and there is NO DOUBT about who built/painted this box. Since there are only 22 Crosman objects known, this box will go for a big number, even though condition is not good.

 

When i was searching for Frisian boxes the other day, this one came up from the Queen, 18th century
Property from the Estate of Queen Juliana of The Netherlands: All to be Sold for the Benefit of Charity

https://www.lotsearch.de/lot/a-dutch-frisian-carved-oak-casket-18th-century-21013887

 

Gorgeous, but I won't be bidding. I will stick to my humble though stinking coffee spoon box.

 

That is a GOOD THING! the sale was 2011! i think? Dang Dutch language site even after i clicked Translate, still jabbering on in dutch.

 

Typical, we love to jabber on in Dutch. It is German though, not Dutch, surely you understand German, James?

 

Nein! not a clue! had to google "no" in german to be sure!