Arthur Stone Sterling Silver Pill Box with Applied Gold, Gardner, MA, c. 1910

Items from the Stone workshop with gold inlay are works of art and exceedingly rare. This sterling silver pill box was made by Arthur Hartwell, one of the leading silversmiths at the Arthur Stone shop. The slightly domed lid is removable and is decorated around the edge of the top with wonderful incised lines and circles. Four gold flowers are applied to the lid, along with four gold dots which decorate the interior space where the incised lines dip inward.

While the other artisans in Stone's shop raised objects, the chasing was done by Stone himself until 1925. Most of the silver from Stone's shop features very little chasing, if any at all.

Similar pillboxes without gold inlay are in the permanent collection of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. This pillbox with inlaid gold flowers was object number 67 in the nationally traveling museum exhibition Arthur J. Stone 1847-1938: Designer and Craftsman and is also photographed and described in the same titled catalog by Elenita Chickering (p. 90 and color plate XXIX).

This wonderful pill box is marked underneath with Stone's impressed hammer mark along with 'STERLING/ H'. The 'H' denotes work by Arthur Hartwell who achieved Master Craftsman status within the Society of Arts & Crafts, Boston. The box measures just over 2 inches long by .5 inches high by just over 1.5 inches deep and weighs 1.30 troy ounces. It is in excellent condition and has never been monogrammed.

Exhibition: Arthur J. Stone 1847-1938: Designer and Craftsman

Literature: Elenita Chickering, Arthur J. Stone 1847-1938: Designer and Craftsman (The Boston Athenaeum: Boston, 1994).