Korean chest, candles & curly hair

Put in the princess portrait. First round, and could be worse. From a distance it's not bad. It's mostly curly princess hair and candles all around, which handily echo the candelabra to the right. Putting it  in a frame really helped.


Spent the lion's share of the morning on that. Stopping nearly required an intervention, but until this layer is dry, all I'd be doing is stirring reasonably nice tones into mud.

To distract myself, I blocked in the big iron lock (in the center just under the sword). It's a wonderful old wooden chest, sold to me forty years ago as a Korean money chest.

I love the clasps and handles. There's metal bracketing each corner, plus a pair of large, hand-forged hinges. The top half of the front swings down, and there are a few small drawers along the top inside. There are metal handles on the ends for carrying it, like a camp trunk. No idea how old it really is. Bought it back in the early seventies from some antique place in the Carolinas. Probably Charleston or Mount Pleasant, but possibly along the road to Black Mountain. It's packed with old board games and puzzles from when the kids were younger.