WOODEN CHALKBOARD

Before slate was widely available and long before porcelain-enameled steel became the classroom standard, blackboards were simply wood — planks planed smooth, painted black, and hung at the front of a room. This is that version. The surface is solid wood rather than the slate or steel that replaced it, which places it squarely in the earliest period of blackboard making. The surface carries decades of chalk and erasure, worn and slightly uneven in the way that only genuine age produces. Removed from the schoolroom wall it becomes something else entirely: a framed object with graphic weight and quiet authority, the deep black field acting as both backdrop and presence. Can be hung vertically or horizontally. 

EUROPE, LATE 19C
87" x 50¾" x 1"