Inlaid box made in Harderwijk internment camp during WW1

Description

Inlaid box made in Harderwijk internment camp during WW1. Item 4796.This well made wooden box was made in the Harderwijk internment camp in the Netherlands during WW1. All four sides carry a veneer of the tumbling blocks design, while the front, the back and the lid are also adorned with an inlaid rosette. The top and bottom of the box is cockbeaded to give a little more interest to the piece, and it stands on four bracket feet. The inside of the lid also carries an inlaid geometric pattern. Inside this pattern is a pen and ink signature, and the chip carved inscription, in French, “A Ma Filleule Harderwyk 1914 15 16 – this translates as “To my goddaughter, Harderwyk”, with this spelling of Harderwijk possibly being a French speaker’s spelling. When I was doing some research on this box I came across a postcard from Harderwijk showng three men in the camp finishing off very similar boxes, with the box in front of the man on the right an almost identical piece. The back of the postcard has the following inscription in Dutch and French “The making of pretty work boxes”. I have included the postcard with the box. The width of the box is 253 mm (10 inches), the depth 170 mm (6.75 inches) and it stands 120 mm (4.75 inches) high. It is in very good condition.

On the 4th of August 1914, in order to attack France, Germany invaded neutral Belgium, which resulted in a vast number of Belgians fleeing to the neutral Netherlands. These refugees were housed in a number of displacement camps, one of which was Harderwijk, near the town of the same name. To earn a little money and keep them occupied, inmates were allowed to manufacture small items such as this box. The camps were closed down shortly after the end of the war.