American Red Cedar Keepsake Box, Black Paint and Brass Strapwork, c. 1930–1950

The Piece

A small American box of aromatic red cedar, built in the plain way of the Southern cedar shops between the wars and dressed in a later life with matte black paint and brass strapwork, so that it now reads as a little strongbox or treasure chest. The form is a low rectangle on bracket feet cut into the ends of the side boards, with a flat overhanging lid on two brass butterfly hinges. Across the lid run two long brass straps, each shaped to a rounded tab at the ends and set with five domed copper-headed nails; two shield-shaped brass plates with a single dome nail sit on the front flanks, a shaped brass hasp with a pierced Gothic tail and a wire ring drops over a staple at the center, and the whole of the brass has the mottled, acid-darkened patina that makes it read as old iron from across the room. The black is thin and matte, rubbed through to the pale wood at the edges and corners, and it sets the brass off well.

Open the lid and the box declares itself. The inside is bare eastern red cedar, the Tennessee aromatic cedar with its streaks of red heartwood and cream sapwood, its small tight knots and its unmistakable scent, which is still strong. The walls are single boards butt-jointed at the corners, the bottom is two boards, and the lid is a single wide plank with a shallow lip. On the inside lip the filled mortise of an earlier set of butt hinges shows that the present surface-mounted hinges and the strapwork are a later dressing, and that the box began life as one of the plain cedar souvenir and keepsake boxes that the cedar mills sold by the thousand.

The box is sound and square, the lid closes flat, the hinges and hasp are tight and the straps are firmly nailed. Inside there is a small filled patch to one corner of the floor, a few drips of red wax, and the stains and marks of a box that was used. Outside the black shows light scratches and edge wear and the brass has the darkened finish it was given. Nothing is loose and nothing is missing.

History & Provenance

Eastern red cedar was the wood of the American keepsake box for half a century. The cedar mills of Tennessee, Kentucky and the Carolinas turned the offcuts of the big chest trade into small boxes for gloves, handkerchiefs, letters and jewelry, sold plain or with a souvenir decal on the lid at every roadside stand and gift shop from the Smokies to the Ozarks, and the aromatic wood kept moths out of whatever was put inside. Most were used until they fell apart. Some were given a second life in the 1960s and 1970s, when painting a plain box black and nailing on brass straps, studs and a hasp from the craft store turned it into a treasure chest for a child's room, a den or a bar, and the better examples of that treatment, like this one, were done with care, with the straps cut to shape, the nails set evenly and the brass antiqued to match.

No maker's mark is present and the box is offered as an unattributed American cedar box with later decoration. The dating rests on the materials and the construction rather than style alone: the aromatic red cedar, the butt-jointed boards and cut bracket feet, and the filled hinge mortise are all consistent with a box made between about 1930 and 1950, and the surface-mounted butterfly hinges, pressed brass hasp, strapwork and black paint with a later campaign of about 1960 to 1980.

Product Details

Why It Belongs in Your Home

This is the box for the things that matter and the things that need a lid: letters, photographs, a watch collection, the remote controls, the good playing cards, a child's treasures. The black and brass give it the presence of a strongbox on a desk, a console, a bookshelf or a bedside table, and the cedar inside keeps whatever it holds fresh. It sits with leather, dark wood and iron in a study or a den, and against a pale wall or a painted dresser it is a strong dark accent with a glint of metal. For a shop or designer client it is the sound, characterful, ready-to-style box that anchors a masculine vignette and sells on the smell of the cedar alone.