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Pale Green Dowry Box with Love-Birds
Ref: 2701
This is a really unusual box - pine, 19th century, nice clean condition, it has metal decoration and is painted to front.
The front shows two birds, confronted, possibly turtle doves, and there is a scrolling abstract linear decoration that seems rather Islamic.
This box comes from a part of Europe that bordered onto the Ottoman kingdom and at times was ruled by the Ottomans, so an eastern influence is entirely to be expected. The calligraphic scrolls, the colour, the birds, the minimalism, all seem quite eastern, the gorgeous lock-plate in the shape of a love heart has a sensuous quite un-classical un-western twist.
Of chief appeal must be the colour, which could be described as Matissean (his Morrocan period), the saffron and turmeric earth notes on an exquistive turquoise ground, not pasted on but thinly applied so the pale wood breathes through, an effect of art but enhanced by time.
South Eastern Europe c.1870
H: 51cm (20.1in)
W: 120cm (47.2in)
D: 61cm (24.0in)
SOLD
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