Looking Out, Charming c. 1880s Mother of Pearl Seashell Folk Art Carving libra incorporating wonderful little ink and

incorporating wonderful little ink and watercolor drawings of houses and rivers and lighthouses into diagrams applying plane trigonometry

One corner of the base is not square but rather cuts in a bit--see photos

And the hinged lid closes really tight

and then a green stem with little red flowers or berries subtly painted across the front

with terrific font for the lettering

Looking Out, Charming c. 1880s Mother of Pearl Seashell Folk Art Carving libra incorporating wonderful little ink andI'm sure I've seen them on occasion, but I'd never really looked at a folk art mother of pearl shell carving of this sort before and really what an amazing thing, all done by hand, quite a feat of labor and patience! Perhaps not surprisingly, fisherman were the most common subjects depicted on these, typically shown holding a net and facing away from the sea (toward the viewer), as if coming to shore in at the end of the day. But this much better this