EXTREMELY RARE MIDWESTERN LACY COVERED RECTANGULA

EXTREMELY RARE MIDWESTERN LACY COVERED RECTANGULAR CASKET / DISH, colorless, dish with lancet and ellipse design on sides, bold scroll and fan rim, and 28 bull's-eye scallops around the base, stepped cover with gothic arches and a bold fan-form finial. Probably Pittsburgh. 1830-1840. 5 5/8" h overall, 3 1/4" h rim, 4" x 6 1/4" overall.
Reference: Spillman, p. 68, fig. 157.
Innes, p. 276, fig. 287.
Rose/Corning, frontispiece and p. 105, no. 349 "Apparently unique".
Provenance: From a Minnesota estate collection.
Note: This casket is one of only three or four recorded examples. All three references above illustrate the same example which was originally in the George McKearin collection and now resides at Corning. Another example, which was badly cracked, was part of the Walter E. Simmons, II collection, which sold through the Frank H. Boos Gallery, lot #251, in 1994. Elizabeth and Stuart Feld illustrated the ex:Simmons example in the catalog for their 2006 exhibit "In Pointed Style: The Gothic Revival in America, 1800-1860". These are the only two examples that we could locate. It is unknown whether the example being sold here is one of the four examples cited by Spillman or a previously unrecorded specimen.

In truly outstanding condition, the dish rim with the partial loss of one corner scroll and a few small chips to fan tips, the base bull's-eyes are remarkably proof, the cover is near proof having only a light chip to one corner and minor flaking under the rim