Box

Lucia Kleinhans Mathews|The Furniture Shop

1916 · Painted wood · The American Wing

This box was made by Lucia Kleinhans Mathews at The Furniture Shop, a workshop opened by Mathews, her husband, painter Arthur Frank Mathews, and entrepreneur John Zeile Jr. in 1906 following the San Francisco earthquake. The firm produced both handcrafted decorative furniture and decorative arts. The flat composition of conventionalized floral motifs, landscapes, and figures rendered in polychrome and outlined in black is characteristic of their work. This particular box was made as a gift for Lucia Mathew’s brother and sister-in-law. The inscription on the underside, "A poppy for each year," accompanied by twenty-six poppies and a list of dates, is perhaps a reference to the years of marriage shared by the couple.

Artist

Lucia Kleinhans Mathews|The Furniture Shop

Date

1916

Medium

Painted wood

Culture

American

Department

The American Wing

Credit line

Gift of Jacqueline Loewe Fowler, 2012