A Rare 19th Century West Indian Satinwood Specimen Wood Box With Titled Specimen Samples Probably By Ralph Turnbull, Jamaica.

19th Century West Indian Satinwood Specimen Wood Box.

A rare 19th Century small West Indian Colonial satinwood wood box with hand inscribed titled specimens most probably by Ralph Turnbull, Jamaica.

West Indies Circa 1830

The solid satinwood carcass of rectangular form with sliding cover, having a marquetry star inlaid roundel comprising of various specimen veneers, slides back to reveal an interior with thirty rectangular specimen wood plaques each bearing their identification titles hand written on paper to verso.

The base having a projection hole to raise the samples upwards.

This satinwood box with its titles specimen wood contents has instant appeal for any collector.

Often they are found within a framed format with an inscribed list but the detached samples are far easy to work with in order to make comparisons.

This examples bears resemblance to the important Jamaican immigrant furniture maker Ralph Turnbull of Scottish descent. His workshop pieces were usually labelled and there is a ghosting of a label / writing to one side as shown in the images where this could possible have been.

It would have been thought that this would be used for working purposes within the firm either for identification or showing clients examples of their extensive timber collection.

A wonderful trinket from the past, useful nowadays to identify rare timbers and great for collectors.

Dimensions

This object is eligible for a Certificate of BADA Provenance

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