Sheesham Carved Storage Bench

The seat lifts. Everything else about this piece is decoration around a box.

The back is a shaped panel, arched at the centre and carved in relief the full width, foliate scrolls filling the field edge to edge with no plain ground left. The top rail runs as a plain moulded curve above it, so the eye gets somewhere to rest. Below the carving, a short run of pierced fretwork lets light through at the shoulder line.

Arm panels carry the same relief work on a smaller field, capped with a plain moulded rail and a turned ball finial at each front corner. Four finials in all, front and back.

The seat is three boards, framed and jointed, hinged along the back. Lift it and the whole width of the box is open. The front of the box is two carved panels within a plain frame, matched to the back so the piece reads as one thing rather than a bench with a chest bolted underneath.

Four turned bun feet. Low, so nothing rocks when the lid comes up.

It goes where you need something to happen twice, an entryway where shoes come off and go away in the same movement, or the foot of a bed. Not against a wall with a skirting board that stops the lid.

Made in our Jodhpur workshop.