Beautiful Antique Carved Heart Shaped Box, Ex. "Smitty" Axtell Collection small bowls and to my eye beautifully

and to my eye beautifully merges a mid-century elegance with a more folky sensibility

darker on one side toward the tail

There are four small tears long ago repaired with clear tape from the backside

but I did recently find a seller with a nice bunch of them all by a N

Both are in good

Beautiful Antique Carved Heart Shaped Box, Ex. "Smitty" Axtell Collection small bowls and to my eye beautifullyI know this beautiful little carved box came from the collection of Richard Smitty Axtell (Skinner recently held an auction of many pieces from his collection in "Smitty's Eye: The Axtell Collection") of Deposit, New York, whose collection focused on American antiques especially burl and other woodenware. This looks like burl to me, and beautifully carved, with bat wing like points to the heart on the exterior, but then a rounded heart carved out