Knife box

The knife-box is one of the most pleasant of the minor pieces of furniture which we owe to the artistic taste and mechanical ingenuity of the English cabinet-makers of the final quarter of the 18th century. Some of the most graceful were the works of Adam, Hepplewhite and Sheraton. Occasionally flat-topped boxes, they were most regularly either rod-shaped, or tall and narrow with a sloping tip necessitated by a series of raised veins for exhibiting the handles of knives and the bowls of spoons. Mahogany and satinwood were the woods most regularly employed, and they were occasionally inlaid with marqueterie or edged with boxwood. These attractive receptacles still exist in large numbers; they are often converted into stationery cabinets.