A Rare Pair of Architectural Spar Boxes of Unusually Sophisticated Form (c. 1840 North Pennines England)

pine and minerals

20.00inch wide    17.25inch high    6.00inch deep (50.80 cm wide  43.81 cm high  15.24 cm deep)

The cabinets are of grained pine, with castellated cornice, pedimented roof and spear finials above a glazed front flanked by columns, each with three arrow-slit windows above a moulded plinth.

Each box contains a cleverly conceived arrangement of predominantly refractive minerals found among the veins of ore during mining activity. These particular abstract arrangements resemble the spar grottoes which were fashionable in the 18th century.

The art of spar box making appears to have emerged among the miners in Weardale and Alston Moor. The free supply of these minerals, as by-products of mining, combined with the slack periods when the mines were inaccessible due to inclement weather, almost certainly caused the miners to found this art form. The latter would have been consistent with the northern tradition for art and design.

A permanent exhibition of Spar boxes can be seen in the Lead Mining Museum at Killhope in Weardale.