A Decorated Box

While this box had humble beginnings as a simple sectioned spice box as part of a gift exchange in the SCA, it grew into a decorated box that could be used for so much more. Due to the limitations of this site for images, please see the document for "Spice Box Inspiration" (PDF) in the link provided for more about the box.

My inspiration for the Spice Box and the contents within

In order to create a box, I had a few obstacles to overcome which were availability of materials, budget and authenticity. This was behind the decision to work the box in pine over other period materials. One problem though, is that pine was not as commonly used in England (you may have guessed that I decided on Elizabethan due to my greater familiarity with the era) but it was imported and used to create objects that required less weight. But I took the idea a bit further and had the item sent via Mergriet who just happened to live in a very active port city that was also in trade with inland countries such as Germany, a place where we are more likely to find boxes in pine. This is where one of my favourite little boxes came in, which can be found at the Met Museum (Accession Number: 1976.327). This little box was painted in commonly used colours for such items: red, green, yellow and outlines in black. Also, on closer inspection, there seems to be a layer of possibly white under the paint, though it is hard to tell, however and according to “A Treatise on Painting” by Cennino Cennini (originally printed in the 15th century), wood should be prepared with gesso before painting.

But first with the early plans for the box:

I ended up lining it with basswood and also ended up with some odd cuts at the top and bottom, this was actually due to a few accidents with the chisel and no extra wood to play with. Somehow, I managed to get it to work and here is the box's very humble beginnings.

The carving in front was actually inspired by a ceiling panel and period artwok of lobsters. The recipient had both lobsters and roses on her arms so felt this would be fitting. The actual idea to carve the box came from a small box from the Museum für Angewandte Kunst Köln. The particular box (late 14th century) is made from oak and basswood, where this one was made from pine and basswood. The original box was also painted and was fitted with metal strapwork.

The box was then covered in Gesso from Cennini with zinc in place of lead, the other ingredients included: calcium, lime and hide glue. This is something I had previously ground up and all I had to do was add enough water and warm it up over low heat, stirring until smooth and liquid. This I painted on in layers over the wood until I had a nice smooth surface, then I took a pen and dipped it in ink (though I had no period ink on hand at the time) and outlined any images I did not carve but had transferred onto the box and wished to paint.

Here you can see the the image I painted on either side of the box, and what I forgot to mention in my documentation was that period instruction actually suggests we ink the drawing in first in order to make the painting have more impact (not in those exact words).

The paints were made in part by Cennini's very vague instruction on using oil, what I ended up using as was yolk and linseed based though I only had a couple months for much of the paint to cure before sending it so I was unable to varnish. The period pigments used were ochre, lamp black, iron oxides, lapis and unfortunately I did not have any period green pigments left so used chromium oxide and purposely chose zinc oxide instead of lead.

The strapwork was a bit of a cheat, while I was able to easily document leather being used on boxes, it wasn't in place of strapwork that I could find, however I was unable to get the proper materials so took the opportunity to do a little tooling and made custom strapping.

The last and final touches were the feet, the box just did not look finished without them so found a style of feet that I could reproduce, that being bun feet that I found on a box presumably dated to the 16th century and was Flemish no less, which isn't a far cry from Antwerp (back in the 16th century that is).

Above is the finished product, this was stuffed with many different spices to suit one of the themes the recipient mentioned. In this case, it was filled with all sorts of spices to a late 16th century English theme.

A late 16th century, English, Spice Assortment...

Or, the, mostly, complete documentation for both (in PDF): Spice Box Inspiration

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