Store with This End Up, Antique Brass Barrel Stencil homemade tool box charcoal on laid paper

charcoal on laid paper

but he still has his orb in other (looking as if he might be about to bowl with it)

8 7/16" t x 6 3/8" w x 3 1/8" d

which would fall in to the genre of a a transformation carving

Often one sees these bottle whimsies with various tools inside

Store with This End Up, Antique Brass Barrel Stencil homemade tool box charcoal on laid paperI clearly have a weakness for antique stencils bearing texts that make them interesting as signs of sorts now, and this is a great example. I presume it was made for painting signage on the lids of barrels, but am not sure what contents would specifically require storing one end up and opening from the other? I love that one can't look at it without imagining the object it implies, and especially the symbol at dead center, looking like an eye watching