SOLD Zerlina Blitz's Exquisite Early Two Panel Darning Sampler (Some Loss) antique puzzle box perhaps the result of past

perhaps the result of past use

W Turner painting

I believe it is Mexican

such that one could pull him around via the string that is still attached to the front front--but at some point someone did it the favor of liberating him

or one technology

SOLD Zerlina Blitz's Exquisite Early Two Panel Darning Sampler (Some Loss) antique puzzle box perhaps the result of pastSpotting this as I walked into an antiques show in central Mass last weekend set my heart racing and made me swoon. I love a darning sampler, and this is an early one, late 1700s or early 1800s would be my guess. Most of the early ones one sees are Dutch, with the complexly patterned darning samples most typically organized in an orderly, linear sort of composition; those are gorgeous, but to my eye this more freeform one is even more beautiful feels