Store with This End Up, Antique Brass Barrel Stencil homemade tool box Strung with a rope on

Strung with a rope on the back for hanging

Early-ish 20th c

Aging to the surface of the photo but overall good condition

Pretty rare to find (rather amazing for the glass to have endured some 200 years

which would fall in to the genre of a a transformation carving

Store with This End Up, Antique Brass Barrel Stencil homemade tool box Strung with a rope onI clearly have a weakness for antique stencils bearing texts that make them interesting as signs of sorts now, and this is a great example. I presume it was made for painting signage on the lids of barrels, but am not sure what contents would specifically require storing one end up and opening from the other? I love that one can't look at it without imagining the object it implies, and especially the symbol at dead center, looking like an eye watching