Toilette Box c. 1937

Curator: Before us, we have John Cutting's "Toilette Box," created around 1937 using watercolor and colored pencil. It depicts, quite simply, a decorative box. Editor: It strikes me as oddly comforting, almost domestic. The muted colors and simple subject give it a quiet, intimate feel. Curator: Yes, it captures a specific moment in time, doesn't it? Toilette boxes in this period became increasingly commercial. Items once considered purely utilitarian gained decorative value and entered into consumer culture. This drawing then represents the everyday made precious through art. Editor: Interesting! I immediately zoomed in on the materiality. Look at how the paper’s texture interacts with the washes of watercolor; the lid seems to be embossed! I am thinking about the labor to make those patterns! Are these hand painted designs, or could these be patterns applied industrially on transfer paper? The material tells part of its own story here. Curator: I see your point. There’s a clear interest in both design and representation. It's also fascinating to consider where this 'toilette box' might have been placed in a home—the boudoir, perhaps, reflecting evolving ideas around personal grooming and presentation in the early to mid 20th century. How the intimacy of this ritual gets formalized. Editor: The blurring of art and functional object also poses questions on hierarchies and value. Is Cutting’s choice an attempt to elevate the ordinary or to democratize art by choosing such a common object as subject? Curator: It's both, perhaps. By rendering it with such care, Cutting is signaling a shift in how we relate to everyday items. We no longer take such things for granted. Editor: Looking again, I now see layers of production: a factory potentially mass-producing the physical box and then, Cutting appropriating the aesthetic for his own artistic vision. This is so good! Curator: I agree. It encourages us to look at the beauty inherent in commonplace objects and consider their role within a broader cultural landscape. Editor: I will never look at decorative boxes in quite the same way again. It reveals stories about domesticity and production in very unexpected ways!