Signed Cheese Board with Real Strawberries and Citrus Cast in Resin, Turned Wood with Handle, c. 1965–1980

The Piece

A round wooden serving board turned from a single blank, with a shaped handle rising off one side like a skillet's. The face is cut in three levels: a raised disc at the centre, a recessed channel ringing it, and a broad flat rim beyond that.

The channel is the whole point. Set into it, alternating the whole way round, are whole strawberries and half-slices of citrus — real ones — flooded over with clear casting resin so they sit permanently under a glassy surface.

Look closely and there is no doubt they are real. The strawberries carry their actual seeds standing proud of the flesh in individual pits, with the green calyx and stem still attached and the shoulder curving the way only a real berry curves. The citrus slices show the segment walls, the fine radiating membranes, the pith, and along the rind a dense band of oil glands beaded up like bubbles. No mould reproduces that.

Both have deepened with time. The strawberries have gone from red to a dark garnet-black, the citrus from yellow to warm amber, and the resin has taken on a faint gold cast that lets the wood grain glow through underneath.

The rim is signed in black by the maker.

History & Provenance

This belongs to a specific and very well-defined moment. From the 1960s into the 1970s, clear polyester casting resin became widely available to studios and home workshops for the first time, and an entire craft grew up around it almost overnight: real flowers, leaves, fruit, coins, butterflies and insects suspended in poured plastic, made into paperweights, trivets, table tops, lamps, and serving boards exactly like this one.

The material identifies itself. This is polyester resin, not modern epoxy, and the two age very differently: polyester ambers steadily over decades and traps a scatter of fine bubbles at the boundary where it meets whatever is embedded, and both are visible here. Modern epoxy stays near water-clear far longer and is formulated specifically to avoid that bubbling. The fruit itself has oxidised to near-black over many years, which is not something a recently made piece can imitate.

Taken together — polyester rather than epoxy, decades of ambering, and fruit that has darkened all the way through — the range is c. 1965–1980.

The board is signed on the rim in black, which places it as studio work rather than anonymous factory output. The signature is a short hand and we are not attributing it to a named maker, because we cannot read it with enough confidence to put a name in print. There is no other mark, label, or stamp on the face, the rim, the handle, or the underside.

Product Details

Why It Belongs in Your Home

This is a genuinely strange and wonderful object, and it does what almost nothing else on a table does: it stops the conversation for a second while somebody works out that the fruit is real. That is a rare quality in a serving piece.

Practically, the raised centre disc is built for a wheel of cheese or a round of pate, with crackers, grapes, figs or nuts going around it on the rim — the geometry was designed for exactly that job. The handle means it can be carried out and set down in one motion, and it swivels neatly on a table so it can be passed.

Used flat it is equally at home as a display piece: on a kitchen shelf, propped in a plate stand, on an open dresser, or on a counter with the handle angled out. The amber and garnet against pale wood is a warmer palette than anything currently in production.

A note on care, and the resin changes the rules. Serve on it, but do not cut on it — a knife will score the resin permanently and once scored it cannot be polished back. Never put it in a dishwasher and never soak it. Heat softens polyester resin and can cloud or lift it from the wood, and prolonged water gets under the edge of the casting and separates it. Wipe it with a barely damp cloth and dry it immediately, using a little mild soap only if you must. Keep it away from a hob, an oven door and direct sun: heat and ultraviolet are what age polyester resin fastest, and sun will push the ambering along and can eventually make it brittle. Never use any abrasive, scouring pad, or solvent cleaner on the resin. Once or twice a year give the bare wood on the rim and underside a wipe of food-safe mineral oil, keeping it off the cast surface. Set food on parchment or a cloth if it is oily.