1950s. Large and heavy plywood made map box, 430 x 440 x 390mm, containing 13 shallow drawers, each with hand painted raised maps of areas of Europe, and two large drawers containing boxes of flags and paper key maps mounted on card together with instructions for use; obvious signs of use and wear, with some flags no longer present, but maps generally clean and bright; plywood case painted in cream and tan, two draw-knobs missing, and two seemingly replacements, chest somewhat inevitably due to size and weight, showing some signs of wear and scuffing, with some chipping and minor splintering to extremities and base; a unique labour of love, that was clearly of use. An innovative educational tool, probably created for use in a French school in the late 1950s, and almost certainly hand made by a teacher to accompany classes in geography. No doubt lovingly created and made in a ‘folk art’ style using bright gloss paints, thirteen drawers pull out to reveal raised plywood maps, covering a country or region of Europe. As these are numbered 7 – 19 and cover the whole of Europe it seems certain that it originally formed part of a larger set, perhaps the earlier numbers covered one of the other continents, or more likely the rest of the world in 6 maps.
Each map has a number of colour coded flags [housed within their own purpose made box] to represent countries (yellow), regions (green), cities (red), rivers and seas (blue), mountains and volcanoes (white), etc. The flags have pins which can be inserted into the correct place on each model; a key to the flags is supplied for each map. As can be imagined after 70 years, not all the flags have survived, but apart from France, for which there are only a couple, most of the rest of the maps have close to their full complement.
The Drawers comprise: 7. France ; 8. Italy [34 flags] ; 9. Spain & Portugal [30] ; 10. Belgium & Luxembourg [32]; 11. British Isles [47]; 12. Holland [31]; 13. Switzerland [40]; 14. Danube Region: Austria, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria [30]; 15. Scandinavia [30]; 16. Denmark & Iceland [30]; 17. Albania, Greece & Turkey [24]; 18. Germany & Poland [65]; U.S.S.R. [41]. A truly unique survivor.