The ROGER BACON
Hanging Wall Box 

New England, ca. 1800, with complex bone-dry deeply patinated original red paint on pine.

Pictured on the cover of the legendary dealer Roger Bacon’s auction catalogue, Skinner, 1982.

Roger Bacon (Brentwood, NH) a prominent dealer in primitive rural country objects, heralded untouched surfaces, enthusiastically echoing John Kirk’s “buy it ratty and leave it alone”. This humble wall box is a survivor, with a lifetime of blemishes, and an old nailed-on section of pine added to the lower back to cover an ancient, ragged hole. Bacon valued repairs as having aesthetic merit. A double-box, with nailed joinery, it cants markedly backward from the base to the top.

About 13 ½ inches tall x 7 deep at the base x 3 ¼ deep at the top x 11 ¼ wide.

From a fine private Northeast collection. A SIGNATURE PIECE for an early collection.