R & M Pell's 1841 Wallpapered Draughts Box from the Duke of Grafton rustic utensils and quickly sold

and quickly sold

With its stark lines and textured

about as suggestive (to my eye at least) as a landscape painting might get

early 20th century I would think

but it was easy to discover that the RML incised into the underside stands for Richard M Lincoln (1929-2009)

R & M Pell's 1841 Wallpapered Draughts Box from the Duke of Grafton rustic utensils and quickly soldYou know I love beautiful handwriting, and old wooden boxes, and antique draughts (checkers) too, so of course I fell for this one, which appears to have been a gift from the Duke of Grafton (in the southeast of Northhamptinshire, England) to an R & M Pell in 1841. There appears to be a hand written note to the Pells on the blue papered top, perhaps from the Duke himself, who one imagines sent these along as a gift, and in which the word "friend" is