Lock

Description

Frank L. Koralewsky served as a traditional ironworker’s apprentice in his native north-German town of Stralsund. After obtaining journeyman status, he worked in various German shops before immigrating to Boston in the mid- 1890s. By 1906 he was a member of the Boston Society of Arts and Crafts, specializing in locksmithing and hardware. This extremely intricate lock, which took seven years to complete, exemplifies the early-20th-century taste for sentimental medievalism and represents the pinnacle of the metalworking tradition at the turn of the 20th century. Exhibited at the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition, where it won a gold medal, the lock illustrates Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm’s fairy tale “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.”

Provenance

The artist, Everett, MA; to Richard T. Crane, c. 1920; given to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1926.

Lock

Frank L. Koralewsky

1911

Accession Number

28869

Medium

Iron with inlays of gold, silver, bronze, and copper on wood base

Dimensions

50.8 × 50.8 × 20.3 cm (20 × 20 × 8 in.)

Classification

metalwork

Museum

The Art Institute of Chicago

Chicago, United States

Credit Line

Gift of Mr. Richard T. Crane