I'm always happy when I bring home a spruce gum box--they've gotten so precious I most often just have to admire them and let them go--and of course anything with inlaid heart or star, or both, on it too! (And what a fabulous star here especially.) Kin to sailor's valentines and knotwork baskets, spruce gum boxes (also called gum books as they were primarily shaped like books) were made by loggers far from home to bring home to sweethearts and loved ones. Carved from one piece of wood, with a slide opening at top or bottom, most were made in Maine, and date mostly to 1850-1920 or so, after which improved transportation allowed loggers to return home more frequently, hence fewer lonely nights alone carving! Spruce gum, made from tree sap hardened into resin, became quite an industry, with Maine the largest and probably first producer of gum with nearly two dozen companies emerging between 1848-1910.
This one, wonderful--and happily quite different--on both sides, is in beautiful shape, just missing its slide at top. Not a very complex carving job should one wish to replace it, but I'm so smitten with that star and heart and inlaid border and chip carved diamonds I don't much miss it.
4 3/4" x 3 1/4" x 1 3/16".Later 19th century, c. 1880s is my guess. A couple of minor dark spots to the surface of the wood, as pictured, I don't think at all detracting.
You might also like
