Box

German-born Joseph Heinrichs established a successful metalworking business around 1898 with shops in both New York and Paris. Surviving patents attest to his creativity and committed pursuit of innovation. His firm produced large quantities of utilitarian and industrial metal wares for use in hotels and restaurants; however, he also produced artistic goods for domestic settings. These survive in small numbers and exhibit outstanding craftsmanship as well as highly original designs. The arrowheads used to decorate this box reflect prevailing contemporary fascination with Native Americans. When attached to a box and displayed in a fashionable, progressive Arts and Crafts interior, these arrowheads have complex resonances. For patrons of Heinrichs’ metalwork, the arrowheads likely would have had similar sorts of sentimentalized associations with "honest" handcraft traditions that Arts and Crafts artists attributed to medieval works of art. This box raises intriguing questions about the ways in which artists and their patrons engaged with the art, culture, history, and present realities of Native American peoples.