Featured Help anyone can tell me info on this box

Hello All

Hoping someone can shed some light on this wooden box for me, are the initials BRH a person's who ordered the box or a brand? It's empty on the inside, looks to me like an old cigar box or jewelry box. Was it made in 1894? I've googled lots but can't find anything with the initials.

Many thanks in advance for any help.

Helen

 

Helen, I cant tell from photos but does the lock have any makers marks?

Again, hard to tell but the metal fittings look a bit shiny

 

It looks like Dutch woodcarving:

 

Looks like chipwork, which was hobby stuff at the time. I think those initials are for the owner of the box - might be the maker, or who the box was made for. 1894 is not an unreasonable date. Looks very nicely done.

It's probably a good thing that you can't find another online.

 

Hello, thanks for your reply, it just says 'patent lock joint' on the hinges, nothing marked on the lock part tho.

 

Thanks for your help, lovely boxes

 

Welcome!
NICE box and photos too!

 

Thanks for your help, my granny said take it away as she was moving house, her house is full of interesting bits and pieces, looking forward to placing them around my own home.

 

Thanks Helen. I liked the look of the box but was trying to see if there was anything that didnt match.

As a non expert on woodenware it looks good to me

 

The initials are likely the owner which may or may not correspond to the maker. Such things were often made by gentlemen to give to their sweethearts, though people also made them for themselves or had them made. It is likely a keepsake/documents box meant to keep one's most important possessions. Be sure to ask granny about any provenance. The initials may correspond to a past relative.

 

Friesian chip carving looks like to me. Nice box.

"The Frisians are a Germanic ethnic group indigenous to the coastal parts of the Netherlands and northwestern Germany. They inhabit an area known as Frisia and are concentrated in the Dutch provinces of Friesland and Groningen and, in Germany"

 

I'd say yes, 1894 seems right to me looking at hinges, lock. This style of carving has been around for centuries.

 

Yep, does. Value wise prices are all over the map, if it was carved in the netherlands/germany you can buy a 17th century carved box pretty cheap, $1000. or so.
If it was carved in america by a dutch/german immigrant and you can prove it, it suddenly becomes American Folk Art & GET OUT YOUR POCKETBOOK!
Here is a 1683 friesian box last year at skinner, sold for $1000

 

Dimensions?

If u put it up 4 sale let me know.

 

It's a really nice box. Just to be clear, there is no reason that this box wasn't made in the Friesian style in America or some other country; by the 1890s there were instruction books, printed patterns, and classes offered for chip-carving - as already suggested, it was a popular pastime. The lock and hinges appear to be original, with the lock's patent notation in English, pointing to likely origin in the UK or US, not that the lock couldn't have been used on a piece made in another country...

~Cheryl

 

Good point, especially in great britain, they were carving up a storm according to Jack Plane, an Irish cabinetmaker who worked in ireland & england in the antique trade before retiring to Australia. I notice OP is from Ireland so very possible this box was carved somewhere in GB.
According to Jack who writes a blog i follow, this carving thing in victorian england reached rather epic & hideous proportions.
"In the Victorian era, middle- and upper classes prospered and many wealthy profligate gentlemen who, with nothing better to occupy their time, thought it amusing to roll up their starched white shirt sleeves, in imitation of the working class, and recklessly carve anything and everything around the home in the then fashionable Elizabethan and Jacobean revival taste."
For pic's here is link to blog post & carving madness
https://pegsandtails.wordpress.com/2014/11/29/picture-this-xxxix/

 

Very nice blog, enjoyed that.
I've always said the nineteenth century caused an overload of bad taste. Although some very good styles came out of it too. And I must confess, I love a bit of kitsch, Orientalism for instance.

 

The ethnic Frisians also live in the coastal part of Belgium, called West Flanders. That could mean they even live in the adjoining Flemish part of France.
The general rule is that ethnic Frisians live in the coastal areas of the Low Countries (which at one time included present day French Flanders) and eastward in Germany to somewhere near the Danish border. There are pockets of other ethnicities in those coastal regions, notably Franks in parts of Holland (the name of two western provinces), Kennemers in North Holland (Haarlem, etc.), and Saxons in parts of Groningen.
My Dutch ancestors from my father's side are Frisian and Saxon, from my mother's side Celtic and Frankish. That is just the Dutch contingent.

 

Yes, Jack is a hoot! A very fine woodworker who builds some spectacular furniture in his retirement years and very knowledgeable about early Irish/English furniture.
That early Friesian carving style is very distinctive, i see it at early american furniture auctions from time to time which is how i came to know a little about it.

 

Alrighty then, now that i have managed to blow this thread completely apart, let's look at some early Frisian carving that is SUPPOSED to be 100% american and commands huge numbers at auction, as much as $40,000. & more.
This huge difference in prices between the old country & american pieces is what leads to fraud in the marketplace and, in my view hurts the antique industry today. Most people today are not willing to invest the time to educate themselves & they don't trust the folks selling so the net result is flat & declining sales.
Friesian carved spoon racks from the New York/New Jersey area