Hand-Tooled Handsome

French Art Nouveau Pewter Round Dresser Box (LEO Design)

Over the years, I’ve acquired boxes similar to the one shown above.  They’ve always been French, hand-tooled pewter and, usually, they’re signed.  Something about this box seemed a little different, though.  For one thing, the design is strongly Secessionist, indicating that it might be Viennese (or Austro-Hungarian).  Furthermore, the artist’s signature is apparent but indistinct—I don’t recognize it and cannot read it—and it seems to be written in Cyrillic characters (which would make it Eastern European).  Like so much of Secessionist objet, it might have been made in one of the satellite countries that reported-to (and took their design cues from) Vienna, center of the Austro-Hungarian Empire (and the Secessionist Movement).

Regardless of precise attribution, the hand-tooled pewter box, shown above, would make an attractive and worthy Father’s Day gift—handsome and practical.