Artist's paint box

1830-1880

Measurements

5/8 in x 6-1/8 in x 3-3/4 in

Materials

Mahogany and unidentified hardwood (bottom board), paint pigments

Credit Line

Historic Odessa Foundation

Accession Number

2020.109

Condition Notes

Some of the pigment cakes are broken.

Comments

The shallow, rectangular box has a sliding lid that opens to shallow compartments for individual blocks of pigment.  Each block of pigment has the color name in raised letters on one side and a raised, walking lion on the other.  A long, narrow compartment along one long end allows storage of appropriate tools.

As Nina Fletcher Little observed in 1980, a large number of the well-appointed artists' boxes used by accomplished Americans were English importations.  Caked paints were invented in London about 1778 by William Reeves, who became the largest supplier to Americans until the mid-19th century.  (See “Artists’ Boxes of the Early Nineteenth Century,” American Art Journal [Spring 1980], pp. 31-33.)  The lion symbols on these paint cakes evoke English origins, in contrast to documented Philadelphia-made paints that have the maker’s name identified on them.