Regency Painted And Penwork Bombe Box on Gilt Lion Paw Feet, English, circa 1820

A painted and penwork bombe-form box, the body swelling outward on all four sides and tapering to a raised rectangular lid with canted corners. Each face of the body is painted with a distinct polychrome landscape in the neo-Gothic Romantic manner: the front panel depicts a Gothic cathedral or abbey ruin with a skiff on a river in the foreground; the reverse shows a rural cottage set against a fortified manor house; each end panel displays a unique ecclesiastical structure amidst dense foliage. The lid edge is painted with a continuous frieze of large open flowers; poppies, roses, and daisy-form blooms against a black ground, consistent with the botanical motifs promoted during the Regency period.¹ The lid panel itself with topographical landscape depicting a coastal fortified estate overlooking an expanse of water with a small vessel near the shore. The interior of the lid is painted with a further Gothic ruin scene; a round tower and ruined arch with a thatched cottage at the waterside, set within a red-painted border. The interior is fitted with a sectioned tray in red-painted wood, centering a painted panel, flanked by open compartments. The box rests on four cast gilt metal lion paw feet. Working lock & key.

Height: 6 in. (15 cm.)
Width: 9 in. (23 cm.)
Depth: 6 in. (15 cm.)

¹The floral decoration on boxes of this period carried deliberate symbolic weight. The poppy, thought to aid restful sleep, was recommended as a decorative motif by both Rudolph Ackermann and Thomas Hope. The pansy, derived from the French pensée, meaning thought, and the English rose appeared frequently on painted and penwork boxes, rendered naturalistically or drawn stylistically. The tree of life, imported from the East, appeared in many guises within floral compositions of the period. Clark, Antigone, and Joseph O’Kelly. Antique Boxes, Tea Caddies, & Society 1700–1880. Atglen, PA: Schiffer Publishing, 2003, p. 63.