Shaker Pantry Box

A Shaker pantry box is a round or oval bentwood container made by hand within Shaker communities, formed by steaming and bending a thin strip of wood around a mold and fastening the overlapping ends with copper tacks driven through a distinctive pointed joint known as a swallowtail, a shape that identifies a box as Shaker made at a glance. The boxes were traditionally finished with milk paint, a durable coating made from milk casein mixed with earth pigments that can remain intact on an indoor box for hundreds of years, and beyond simple pantry storage some historical examples were built as sewing carriers fitted with a handle. Shaker communities continued to produce these boxes well into the twentieth century, documented for example in the work of Brother Ricardo Belden making oval boxes at Hancock Shaker Village in Massachusetts in 1935, and present day woodworkers still make them by hand, aware of how demanding the bending and jointing process remains.